C-da,
My suggestion is that please find sometime to guide students of architecture in
India and US as a guest faculty atleast -sharing your world of experience after
you graduation in 1969 from Architecture dept of IIT Kharagpur (where a
student of mine is now sudying) .
About Boston's failed Big Dig undersea-tunnel project (world's largest
construction project) leading to Logan AIrport from Boston city --
which you explained so clearly here- I had never known its faults with even
Harvard's and MIT's archi. schools around ( I went thru the tunnel only once in
a shared taxi --while coming to DC for the first time with Harvard classmates
in Nov 2004 for a edu. seminar of CIES )
You do have a knack of explaining things - tough teaching needs more patience
than other activities.
Best wishes.
Umesh
umesh sharma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: C-da,
This piece by you seemed educative to a lay person like me (who has plenty of
structural/civil engineers and architects make egregious blunders - the
building of Jaipur School has somewhat rhombus shape rather than original
rectangular shape and even shifted the foundations a bit off - leading to
renewed repairs and buttressing -- that under the overseeing of top architects
and engineers in the city -atleast most people thought so)
Umesh
***
> Hi K:
>
>
> >C'da your comments on this will be highly
> appreciated
> --- first because it was designed by some Very
> Bright
> and Very Creative American Engineer whose Math
> >foundation is very strong (unlike some Desi idiot)
>
>
> *** I was hoping to be able to answer your question
> intelligently. But the premise of your questions
> left me completely bewildered.
>
> Did *I*
make those assertions about the
> qualifications or even implied them about who
> might have designed the bridge, or how good they
> were in math? How do you know who
> designed it? What if it was designed by some very
> creative East Pakistani structural engineer
> trained at BE college, like Fazlur Khan, who
> developed the structural system for the
> Sears Towers? What then?
>
> I thought you are an engineer. But from the
> comments you make and the questions you ask, I must
> have been wrong. Anyway, a bridge's integrity is
> not the function of just its design alone. The math
> skills of the designer hardly enter the equation.
> Most structural elements fail not because of design,
> but
> for a variety of other factors, most notably due to
> poor construction practices , which is a result of
> incompetent management, human
failures, sometimes
> corruption--as in India, and sometimes just because
> of the laws of probability playing out: if something
> could go wrong, it would, sooner or later.
>
> The Boston Tunnel concrete panel failures were
> determined to be a result of using quick-setting
> epoxy bolts, instead of the specified standard
> setting epoxy, which develop their full strength
> slowly, over about 48 hours, but remain strong
> thereafter. On the other hand the quick setting
> epoxy develops strength within minutes, but do not
> retain it over time. Investigators found, that the
> right material was ordered by the installers, but
> was furnished the wrong product by the supplier . It
> appears as though someone in the shipping warehouse
> packed the wrong stuff. Here it is a case of a
> human failure, that no amount engineering acumen or
> management expertise could have
prevented.
>
> The Minneapolis failure seems to have been
> precipitated by huge amounts of dead weight piled on
> the bridge deck from rock sent for the repairs. This
> is a management failure. Whoever was overseeing the
> logistics of the material delivery either did not
> have any knowledge of structures and load bearing
> capacity of a structure or was asleep at the wheel.
>
> There could be other factors: Such as non-inclusion
> of the redundancy principle of design. This was a
> political issue, of managing the cost and funding.
> Or defective welding. Fifty years back welding
> technology was not as sophisticated as it is today.
> Today we have ultrasonic testing done, before
> welded structural members of critical components. In
> my last major project, I had to reject a number of
> large span bowstring trusses, which were shop
> welded, but installed
without ultrasonic testing.
> The installers installed the trusses, but when asked
> for certificates of testing, could not produce them.
> On site testing showed that a number of joints were
> unacceptable. The result was a very expensive on
> site correction of the joints that cost the steel
> fabricators big time. By the end of the job, the
> fabricator was going out of business. Apparently it
> had other problems elsewhere as well. They got our
> job, because they were the lowest bidders, and not
> necessarily because they were also good fabricators.
> The public bidding requirements in this case was a
> contributing factor-- by allowing a fabricator of
> questionable skills or management abilities to get
> the work.
>
> The point I am trying to make here is that DESIGN is
> only a small factor in these cases. At any event,
> MOST structural design is not a
result of creative
> engineering: they are dictated by standards and
> codes
> and budgets. Most day-to-day structural engineering
> in the USA is done not by highly skilled engineers,
> but by 'designers', who are vocational tech. school
> graduates with high school degrees, who are familiar
> with codes and standards and know how to look up
> standard tables and size structural elements.
>
> Us vs India:
>
> *** Can these be compared? Not if anyone is even
> remotely familiar with the issues. An Indian
> structural engineer could be a math genius and could
> mentally analyze the stress of a rocket ships nose
> cone at re-entry. But its usefulness in the Indian
> context is zip, zero, nada.
>
> An IIT PhD in structural engineering could design
> US skyscrapers with ease, but won't be able to
> design a temporary bridge using bamboo and timber
if
> their life depended on it. Why? Because the building
> materials, their quality standards and installed
> elements' quality can be and are tested and
> trustworthy in the USA. But the quality of a welded
> joint or the strength of on-site, hand-mixed batches
> of concrete in India cannot be. So this
> engineering whiz from IIT will be stumped, wouldn't
> know what to do. The experienced but uneducated
> Bihari cement-mistry would know more than the PhD
> engineer, who is even further handicapped because
> his training is entirely academic, without a sense
> of how various materials behave under different
> circumstances. He is a babe in the woods in the
> absence of strength tables of materials, because he
> never has had the exposure to the real world.
>
> Checks and Balances:
>
> *** Again, there is no way to compare this for India
> vs USA.
India's circumstances are far different
> from the USA's. But the bottom line could be gauged
> by the PERCENTAGE of failures, or the frequency of
> it. Like how many American bridges fail out of how
> many, compared to in India.
>
>
> I hope that helps.
>
> c-da
>
Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi K:
I am trying to meet a deadline before I rush to the airport. Be out
for about a week. Will get back to you as soon as I can.
c-da
At 4:01 PM -0700 8/2/07, Krishnendu Chakraborty wrote:
>Bridge 'structurally deficient'
>
>Engineers spotted structural problems in the bridge as
>far back as 1990, but state officials thought patches
>and yearly inspections would be enough to keep it
>together, Minnesota's top bridge engineer said. This
>year's inspection started in June and would have been
>finished in September after $2.4 million worth of
>maintenance on the deck, joints, guardrails and
>lights.
>
>-------
>
>C'da your comments on this will be highly appreciated
>--- first because it was designed by some Very Bright
>and Very Creative American Engineer whose Math
>foundation is very strong (unlike some Desi idiot) and
>second, the "chacks and balances" seems to have
>failed and third because it is your field of
>expertise.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>--- Chan Mahanta wrote:
>
>> O' Ram:
>>
>> Hope your weekend is going well. We had a nice
>> kharkhowa gathering,
>> along with some kolgutikhowas and even a couple of
>> desuali folks
>> last evening. This has been the most pleasant of
>> July weather I can
>> recall in our 32 years in St. Louis. A light breeze
>> carrying mist
>> from the river kept us comfortable, the mosquitos
>> were on vacation,
>> the cicadas were noisy but our friends' conversation
>> kept them at bay
>> and my mango-margarita kept everyone mellower than
>> the near
>> full-moon's light under a clear sky, until we fared
>> our friends well-
>> in whose honor we hosted the gathering--on their
>> impending
>> trip to the desert of Rajasthan where he will be
>> teaching business
>> management as a Fullbright Scholar
>> on sabbatical at Pilani and she will be there to
>> keep him company.
>>
>> Anyway, I read your thoughts here. As usual, no
>> problems with your
>> being a non-engineer. I am not one either. In IIT
>> we, the
>> architecture students, were laughed at by our
>> engineering friends,
>> because we did not use slide-rules, which was
>> equivalent to looking
>> down upon people who count with their fingertips,
>> the lowest of the
>> low-tech lot, a few notches below the
>> logarithmatic-table users. We
>> tried to turn the tables by laughing at their
>> drawing skills. But
>> they knew how to put us even further down: They told
>> us that they
>> will always have draftsmen ( I don't remember
>> hearing of draftswomen)
>> to do their dirty work, while we shall remain
>> pencil-pushers for
>> ever. That was really below the below the belt, and
>> it hurt.
>>
>> Enough about my sad stories.
>>
>> On the fools'-rush front, I won't hold anyone guilty
>> of crimes that I
>> routinely commit. So rest easy there also.
>>
>> By now if you are beginning to fret about all the
>> nicey-nice leader
>> to this response and wondering if I am about spring
>> a tripper on you,
>> relax there too. I don't have anything tricky up my
>> sleeve this
>> morning.
>>
>> All I ask is WHAT exactly were you and your cheering
>> section, ably
>> led by Krishendu, trying to prove or disprove ?
>> Once I get a bearing
>> on that, I will be pleased to share my thoughts.
>>
>> Take care.
>>
>> c-da
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> At 9:16 AM -0600 7/28/07, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
>> >C'da
>> >
>> >Being a non-engineer, and susori-musori pass kora
>> individual, I may
>> >not be qualified to comment in this high-flying
>> math/engg. debate -
>> >but nevertheless, I will try... you know, "fools
>> rush in where
>> >angels...."
>> >
>> >One, is it is generally recognized that Indian
>> graduating from
>> >Indian schools are good in math/science. Not
>> because they boast
>> >about it, but because they just are. There are
>> extremely bright
>> >people there.
>> >Most of the people who have been a big success in
>> this and other
>> >countries have had their "fundas" from India, and
>> most Assamese from
>> >the Engg. colleges in Assam, and education in
> > cotton or GU or DU.
>> >
>> >Second, you charge that because you don't see
>> contributions from
>> >these people in India, then obviously these
>> graduates are Not
>> >creative etc.
>> >
>> >It is possible that even though these Indians may
>> be creative and
>> >intelligent, but may NOT be willing or are not able
>> to contribute to
>> >societies they came from. Maybe, they came to the
>> USA to make more
>> >money (read better opportunities).
>> >While, I do not think there is anything wrong with
>> that, let us
>> >realize that there are many many people in India
>> who are just as
>> >capabale or better than immigrants to the US and
>> who have
>> >contributed to Indian's growth and development.
>> >
>> >Third, if these people were not creative in India,
>> how is it that
>> >these very same people with the basic fundamentals
>> from India have
>> >suddenly become creative here? Did they suddenly
>> sprout wings?
>> >
>> >Lastly, (and I may the loner here) - Math & science
>> are great, but
>> >let us not put down other branches. There are many
>> world leaders
>> >(Kennedy/Gandhi/Nehru etc) who have come from
>> non-science, non-tech
>> >backgrounds, but have been instrumental in
>> development and broad
>> >visions for their countrues.
>> >
>> >If it wasn't for Nehru, many today would NOT have
>> gone to the IITs.
>> >Yes, those same IITs that have enabled many to
>> build careers in the
>> >US and in India. Yes, those same IITs that have
>> built the very
>> >foundations that they so easily rubbish today.
>> >
>> >If it wasn't for JFK, man may not have gone to the
>> moon. A country
>> >needs visionaries, just like it needs bright people
>> from every other
>> >branch.
>> >
>> >More later
>> >
>> >--Ram
>> >
>> >On 7/28/07, Chan Mahanta
>> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > >By this logic, with so many successful Indian
>> >Engineers and Scientists in US and other countries
>> the
>> >primary math foundation laid by Indian School
>> system
>> >must be excellent.
>> >
>> >
>> >*** Can you cite some statistics, or even educated
>> guesses on how "
>> >many successful Indian
>> >Engineers and Scientists in US and other countries"
>> are there, and
>> >what percentage is that of :
>> >
>> >A: Total number of scientists and engineers
>> produced by India?
>> >
>> >B: Total number of people of the demographics of
>> which these are a
>> >segment and how the rest are doing ?
>> >
>> >
>> >C: HOW these "successful" products of an
>> 'excellent' Indian education
>> >system have contributed to India's well being?
>> >
>> >D: How the rest of the 'excellent' Indian education
>> system have
>> >contributed to India's well being?
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>=== message truncated ===
>
>
>
>
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Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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Umesh Sharma
Washington D.C.
1-202-215-4328 [Cell]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
http://www.uknow.gse.harvard.edu/index.html (Edu info)
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/ (Management Info)
www.gse.harvard.edu/iep (where the above 2 are used )
http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
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