www.sefindia.org

[sefi_admin]

Dear All:

In this episode of our series "Authors@SEFI" we will present to you our young old member, Er NR Prabhakar. You are familiar with his enlightening and erudite posts- but I don't know how many of you know that he has been a regular contributor of engineering cartoons to many engineering journals and periodicals.


Er. Prabhakar has had an interesting  professional history. He started his career as a professional in India and then spent thirteen years of his career working as a designer in the United Kingdom (having passed his IStructE exam). He returned to India and worked with large engineering organisations which culminated in a private practice in Mumbai for two decades. He now writes and markets software for steel and concrete design.


Er. Prabhakar special interest lies  in design of Towers  Cooling towers, Chimneys, concrete  cum steel TV towers, besides silos, industrial projects and so on.


What we would like to share with you is a set of slides based on a book published on Er Prabhakar's engineering cartoons by Gujarat Ambuja. We hope you enjoy it.


Thanks Er. Prabhakar for being such an active member of SEFI and sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us.


Links: Download the pdf from the link at the end of this email. Previous essays including this one under this series are archived here https://www.sefindia.org/?q=node/748  or read online here https://sefindia.org/authors/n_prabhakar.htm

Best regards,

Alpa Sheth

Posted via Email

[N. Prabhakar]

Dear All,

I thank Er. Alpa Sheth for writing kind words about me and my career.

I would like to add the following:

List of Technical Papers authored by N.Prabhakar are given below, published in Indian Concrete Journal, national and international seminars, ResearchGate.net and in SEFI website which can be downloaded. So far, over 9000 people from all over the world have read my papers in ResearchGate.net.

Natural Draught Cooling Towers
Tall RC Chimneys
Andheri Water Tower
Kohima TV Tower
NhavaSheva Silos (Co-author with Mr. S.A. Reddi)
Collapse of Kolkata Flyover (Co-author with Dr. N. Subramanian)
Earthquake Resistant Structures & IS: 456
Water Retaining Structures
Stability of Buildings against Wind Load
Builidng collapses and Remedies

With best wishes and regards,

N. Prabhakar
Chartered Structural Engineer
Vasai (E), Pin 401 208

[pvsrao]

Respected N. Prabhakar Sir
   Felt very nice to go thr your professional carrier.
Pl mention about the softwares packages also  you have developed in Excell, for information to the viewers .

Regards
Pvs Rao

[N. Prabhakar]

Dear Er. PVS Rao,

Thank you for your posting.

As suggested, for details about the two software I have developed, please visit my websites: www.rcdesignspreadsheets.com and www.steeldesignspreadsheets.com.

I am also giving here under YouTube video link for RCDesign and STeelDesign software.

For RCDesign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK5k8rLymOM

For STeelDesign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDpnJLfGaz0

With best wishes,

N. Prabhakar
Chartered Structural Engineer
Vasai (E), Pin 401 208

[kunalkansara]

Dear Er Prabhakar

Your series 'believe it or not' is so fascinating! I didn't know you are a caricaturist as well. You are the RK Laxman of the construction industry!

Thanks for sharing.
Kunal

[Dr. N. Subramanian]

Dear All,

It is great to learn about the experiences of Er Sukanta Adhikari, while writing the book on  "Handbook of Turbo Generator foundation". As he has said, Indian Publishers are reluctant to publish books, on topics which are not prescribed in the syllabus. Moreover, publishers do not encourage an young author (I also had the same difficulty, when I wrote my first book!)

Wish the book by Er Sukanta Adhikari all success and wish him to write more books useful to young engineers.

Warm regards
NS

[Dr. N. Subramanian]

Dear Er Alpa and all other members of SEFI,

I am very happy to read about my friend and senior Engineer Prabhakar in this series on book authors and their experiences.

Making cartoons on a dry subject like Structural Engineering is a very tough job and as indicated by my other friend Dr Kunal Kansara, Er Prabhakar is the RK Laxman of the construction industry! I am sure all will appreciate the cartoons made by him. The selected cartoons published here are great!

I am very fortunate to know him through ICJ which I subscribed/received from 1974-2018! We have also authored a paper jointly!  I am happy to have a copy of his Cartoon book by Ambuja cements!

His achievements are to be emulated by the young engineers (See the impressive structures designed by him). Like me he has also developed several software packages! His papers are also noteworthy!

Warm regards
NS

[sukanta.adhikari]

Respected NS,

Thanks for your kind words and support.You have always been an inspiration for young Engineers like us.

Certainly the journey will continue and with the blessing of mentor like you,I will come up with more books in future.

Regards
S Adhikari

[N. Prabhakar]

Dear  Er. Alpa Sheth, Er PVS Rao, Dr. Kunal Kansara and Dr. N. Subramanian,


Thank you all very much for your kind words on my cartoons in the recent posting in SEFI on AUTHORS at SEFI.


Firstly, I must thank Er. Alpa Sheth for including my book on cartoons in this series, although the subject matter is not technical as in the case of books by other Authors.


Secondly, I must thank Mr. B.V.B Pai and Mr. V.R. Kulkarni, Editors of ICJ, for publishing my cartoons in a technical journal like  ICJ for a period of 19 years. Later to Mr. C.M. Dordi, Vice President - Technical Services of Ambuja Cements, for taking initiative to publish the cartoons in a book form.


Without the help of the above mentioned people, my cartoons would have been no where.


Thank you all once again, and with best wishes,


N. Prabhakar

[sefi_admin]

Dear All:


Greetings for 2020.
In the new year we recommnence our  series "Authors at SEFI"


It is our delight to introduce our senior SEFI member Mr J D Buch. Those of you who have been involved in industrial design must have heard about his eminent and much respected designer.


Mr Buch was kind enough to share details of his work and with his permission, I am enumerating it as under:


From the pen of Er J D Buch..


***********************************************

The object of my writing books and articles in engineering magazines is to share my experience and fulfil the need for practical design books.
List of my publications of books and technical papers is given in the attachment.

These publications are results of my structural and project management experience of over 35 years. Projects on which I was Lead Engineer of the design team include industrial plants, tall towers, high-rise office and bank buildings, hotels, educational institutions, townships, aircraft hangars, etc.


Most of the design examples in my book are of the existing structures on which I was associated on designs and implementation. Staad input listing for different load cases and detailing are also given.

  
Briefly reasons to choose a particular subject for writing the book are as under:
  
1.   Design of Cement Plant Structures:
  
From 1965 to 1985, we were consultants for eight cement plants (600- tpd to 2200 tpd single kiln). For any industrial plant, it is necessary for structural designer to know the basic process flow and functioning of all major equipment. Cement plant operates all the year round and has special requirements on consideration of jamming of materials, ovalling of kiln due to high heat, abrasive nature of clinker, loads due to continuously operating grab cranes (in earlier plants). In spite of advancement in knowledge of material pressure, failures of cement silos are still not uncommon. As such design cannot be based only on codes, given loads by equipment suppliers and soil parameters supplied by the soil-investigation consultants.
  
During the first plant, we took disproportionate time, in establishing design parameters of various materials (Density, angle of internal friction, heat, abrasion, etc) and understanding functioning of equipment in the process.
  
As we progressed with more experience, I presented papers at the Cement Research Institute (later called National Council for Cement and Building Research), near Delhi. Ultimately, this resulted in my writing this book. This book would serve as a single reference to the design structural engineer.
  
When we did our first Caustic Soda Plant (1962), we referred to a similar book by Vakil of Dhrangadhra Chemicals. I do not know if this book is still available.
  
2. Advanced Structural Design  CAD Examples:
  
In mid-sixties, consulting engineers extensively referred Benson's book for design of industrial structures. Since then, due to industrial development there has been a rapid change, requiring different types of large structure. This book fulfils that need with the design examples of structure listed in the attachment.  
  
*Cyril S. Benson: "Advanced Structural Design", B. T. Batsford Ltd, London; First published in 1959.
  
3.  High-rise Buildings  Design Example of a 110-storey Building
  
Very tall buildings always intrigued me. I wondered what magnitude of loads would be there in such buildings. Then in 1973, my ex-colleague late Dr. Sujit Majumder and I had privilege to listen to two hour spell-binding lecture by Dr. Fazlur Khan at a conference in Delhi. He presented his paper on development of new structural systems for ultra-high-rise buildings with illustrations on slides. Sears Tower was designed by him at that time. Later I came across a publication by National Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, where many of the tall buildings are documented.
  
This resulted in my writing the book on High-rise Buildings.  
  
We again met Dr. Fazlur Khan at a conference in Bangkok, where we presented a paper (1974).
  
4. Advanced Structural Design II:

Over last few decades, shell structures covering large column-free areas are constructed. Due to such large spans and thinner shells, the problem of non-linear buckling of shells has grown in importance.  
  
This book is continuation of my earlier book "Advanced Structural Design" and covers topics listed in the  annexure.
*******************************************




We hope you get a chance to look at some of these books!!


best regards,
Alpa

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