www.sefindia.org

[skjain.iitk]

Dear Colleagues:

Greetings on the Republic Day. Today also happens to be sixth anniversary of the launching of SEFI, and eighth anniversary of the terrible earthquake in Gujarat.  

This past year has truly been a year of revival of SEFI. Alpa Sheth had the wisdom to enthuse a young civil engineering graduate of IIT Kanpur, Sanjeev Kumar to take up the responsibility of managing the SEFI site. And, what Sanjeev and his colleagues at Phoenix Webtech Pvt Ltd have achieved in the last eight months has been nothing less than wonderful. We all are today enjoying a much better and more vibrant Forum thanks to the proactive efforts and dedication of Sanjeev.  

The statistics speak loud and clear on this revival of our Forum: we were 1,798 members last year on this day, and today our number stands at 3,444! In fact, last night, I asked Sanjeev tough questions to ensure that these numbers are not inflated by accident, since the growth of our membership has been unbelievably fast in these months.  

We have made huge progress in structural engineering practice in the last six years, and some of it is clearly a contribution of SEFI. Some of the issues that come up on the Forum have been enlightening to members regardless of their age and experience. However, a lot remains to be done. It is true that India has some of the most enlightened structural engineers and some of our firms are doing world-class work.  However, we must recognize frankly that the average level of structural engineering practice in our country is far behind that in the developed countries with which India aspires to compete. For too long, we have taken shelter in the fact that we are a poor or a developing country, and we need to come out of that mental block.  

It is in this context that SEFI will have a huge role to play in the years ahead: to help build capacity of our young engineers and to hold their hand, to discuss and debate the issues that affect the general practice, to push for improvements of our codes.  

We also take this opportunity to thank our Subscribing Members for their financial support without which this Forum will not be able to function. You may visit http://www.sefindia.org/?q=node/12 to see the 28 individuals and firms that have contributed a total of about Rs 1.46 lakhs this year. We hope many more of our members will contribute financially in the year ahead. For those new on the Forum, members  are encouraged to voluntarily contribute a sum in the range of Rs 500 to Rs 20,000 per year.  

Thank you for being a part of this wonderful community, and with best regards,

Sudhir Jain

Posted via Email

[Dr. N. Subramanian]

Dear Prof. Jain,

I also wish you and all the members of SEFINDIA Republic Day Greetings!

I take this opportuinty to congratulate you and your team members including Mrs. Alpa Sheth and Mr.Sanjeev Kumar for creating this forum, and for perfecting it, for exchange of ideas amoung structural engineers. Glad to note that the Forum has completed 8 years of service and the membership has grown considerably in the last year.

I read about your concerns regarding structural engineering community, which is true. It may be because there are several engineering colleges today which do not have experienced faculty. Moreover many opt for Civil Engineering not because of their interest but because they just want to take some Engineering Degree so that during campas interview they can get a job in any IT Organization. Perhaps after the problems in several IT organizations in India and abroad the trend may change!

Regards
Subramanian

[prof.arc]

Hearty Congrats to Prof. SKJain and his team at SEFI Management.
ARC

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 3:12 PM, skjain.iitk <forum@sefindia.org (forum@sefindia.org)> wrote:

Posted via Email

[rni]

Greetings! Every Republic Day is synonymous with Earthquake. The R-day
reminds us of the heavy responsibility on us, the citizens of this country
to preserve our independence and pluralistic traditions of this
multifaceted country. Well I am aware this statement is more apt for
politicians to make! But, similarly Structural Engineers have a heavy
responsibility to protect the built assets of this country from future
earthquakes. SEFI has been a successful step in properly motivating SE's
openly, without personal manouvres and manipulations, as are commonly seen
in governmental groups. But this is not to decry GoI efforts, in any
manner. NPEEE, ISR, NDMA are some examples of determined GoI efforts to
improve seismic safety in the country. On a personal note I feel in the
21st century the old concepts of
civil/mechanical...science/engineering...concepts are breaking down, if not
already broken in some enlightened universities in US. In assuring
earthqwuake safety, borders between several desciplines have to merge. This
is not just the old fashioned "structural engineering" and IS-1893, a
legacy of the colonial era. It is good to have a legacy no doubt, to be
sunk in it ignorantly may even be blissful, but terribly costly till the
next Koyna, Khillari, Uttarakashi, Bhuj shakes the country. At NDMA we are
hoping to bring out a PSHA map for the country by the end of 2009. We are
of course facing lots of questions and problems. To give one example, how
to estimate ground motion at a site which is affected by sources present in
different seismogenic regions. Another is how to estimate motion very near
the source? As you may know, many of the attenuation formulae are valid for
point sources, which assumption is useful (good old St.Venant principle of
Elasticity in Timoshenko's book!)beyond 40-50 Kms only. This is only one
sample. There are many peaks to be scaled. Geotech issues:soil
classification/field measurements/amplification/liquefaction. Building
classification:structural/material/social. Vulnerabilty:Fragility
curves/damage probabilities/... The list is too long. At the end of which
we should be having a new enlightened way of aseismic planning,
design,certification and contrsuctioin to offer, achieve and assure higher
standards in safety. There are too many difficulties; but then we should
overcome...

Thanks SEFI!

RNI

On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:12:07 +0530, "skjain.iitk" <forum@sefindia.org>
wrote:

[ishacon]

Remarkable, Prof. Iyengar !!

Now with the PSHA maps for India by end of 2009, we can expect
better inputs to assess the earthquake forces, almost at par with
International Codes.

VP Agarwal
ISHA CONSULTANTS (P) LTD
NEW DELHI

PH : 011- 2630 1158
(M) 93 1345 2180
(M) 98 6826 2759
ishacon@bol.net.in (ishacon@bol.net.in)
ishacon@rediffmail.com (ishacon@rediffmail.com)

[quote] ----- Original Message -----
From: rni (forum@sefindia.org)
To: general@sefindia.org (general@sefindia.org)
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 10:35 AM
Subject: [SEFI] Re: Greetings on Republic Day


Greetings! Every Republic Day is synonymous with Earthquake. The R-day
reminds us of the heavy responsibility on us, the citizens of this country
to preserve our independence and pluralistic traditions of this
multifaceted country. Well I am aware this statement is more apt for
politicians to make! But, similarly Structural Engineers have a heavy
responsibility to protect the built assets of this country from future
earthquakes. SEFI has been a successful step in properly motivating SE's
openly, without personal manouvres and manipulations, as are commonly seen
in governmental groups. But this is not to decry GoI efforts, in any
manner. NPEEE, ISR, NDMA are some examples of determined GoI efforts to
improve seismic safety in the country. On a personal note I feel in the
21st century the old concepts of
civil/mechanical...science/engineering...concepts are breaking down, if not
already broken in some enlightened universities in US. In assuring
earthqwuake safety, borders between several desciplines have to merge. This
is not just the old fashioned "structural engineering" and IS-1893, a
legacy of the colonial era. It is good to have a legacy no doubt, to be
sunk in it ignorantly may even be blissful, but terribly costly till the
next Koyna, Khillari, Uttarakashi, Bhuj shakes the country. At NDMA we are
hoping to bring out a PSHA map for the country by the end of 2009. We are
of course facing lots of questions and problems. To give one example, how
to estimate ground motion at a site which is affected by sources present in
different seismogenic regions. Another is how to estimate motion very near
the source? As you may know, many of the attenuation formulae are valid for
point sources, which assumption is useful (good old St.Venant principle of
Elasticity in Timoshenko's book!)beyond 40-50 Kms only. This is only one
sample. There are many peaks to be scaled. Geotech issues:soil
classification/field measurements/amplification/liquefaction. Building
classification:structural/material/social. Vulnerabilty:Fragility
curves/damage probabilities/... The list is too long. At the end of which
we should be having a new enlightened way of aseismic planning,
design,certification and contrsuctioin to offer, achieve and assure higher
standards in safety. There are too many difficulties; but then we should
overcome...

Thanks SEFI!

RNI

On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:12:07 +0530, "skjain.iitk"
wrote:
--auto removed--

Posted via Email