Wootz-8

The legacy of the Metallurgical Engineering Department
 
On a fine morning on March 18, 2017, the Department of Metallurgical Engineering hosted WOOTZ, a national level technical symposium. ‘Wootz’ is the name of an ancient steel primarily discovered and used by Indians, which is now used across the world. This year’s Wootz was the 8  edition of the two day symposium, which served as a great platform for students from various other institutions. This symposium is organized by the joint effort of Metallurgical Engineering Department, Metallurgical Engineering Association (MTEA) and Indian Institute of Metals (IIM), Students chapter, Coimbatore.
 
While workshops and speaker series by top industrialists along with the prelims for a set of events were scheduled for day one, the finals of various technical and fun filled events was scheduled for day two. J block witnessed passionate students eagerly participating in the events organized.
 

The inaugural ceremony was graced by the Chief guest, Mr. Laxmesh B. Hasanabadi, Head,Precision Manufacturing and System Complex, Larsen & Toubro (L&T). Dr. V. Ramaswamy, Chairman, IIM, Coimbatore Chapter welcomed the chief guest and the gathering which was followed by a brief account on the history of Wootz – both the steel and the symposium by Dr. P .Gopalakrishnan, HOD, Dept. of Metallurgical Engineering, PSG College of Technology.
 

Mr. Hasanabadi addressed the enthusiastic audience in the first plenary session. He gave a lot of insights and points to ponder over, where the future of engineering was heading to and how material and metallurgy are shaping the Defense and Aerospace domains in the current day scenario. He also talked about his love for the college, the metallurgy course and expressed his gratitude for being invited to the institution which he absolutely admired. This was followed by a very interesting talk by Mr. E. Sridhar Kumar, Senior Manager, TIFAC Core, PSG College of Technology. He gave a brief introduction to Additive Manufacturing and the need for metallurgy in the field. After lunch break, Dr. K. R. Ravi, Assistant Professor, PSG Institute of Advanced Studies talked on the same subject, but focused more on metal additive manufacturing. The students found his talk very resourceful.  The fourth and final talk was delivered by Mr. Prabahar Annamalai, Director, VECTRAFORM, Coimbatore, who brought to light, various applications of metal additive manufacturing. Day one wrapped with the prelims of a few events conducted after the talks.
 

On the second day, many technical events like paper presentation, poster presentation, industrial problem solving, magnify, metly wizard, Mr. Engineer and non-technical events like JAM, Block and tackle, connections, sudoku, etc. were organized. Unlike last year, there were many active participants this year and the hall was overflowing [  block conference hall ].
 

As the day drew to an end, the valedictory function was held, where award winners of all the events were recognized. Participation certificates were distributed to everyone who had attended the workshops and a video about the two days of the symposium was displayed. With this, WOOTZ-8 came to an end after two productive days for metallurgical science in PSG Tech.