Scintilla '11 Inaugurated

Scintilla '11 with an ISBN 978-81-921954-0-7 was inaugurated on 9th September , 2011 by our Prof. S. Sengupta and S. Roy Choudhury . This is the first time that an A4 size full coloured magazine was composed by the jolites. The ammount of hardwork and dedication that the members of Pandulipi has put into behind creation of this world class magazine is really appreciable.

VIRTUOSO 2 @ CREATIVE WRITING

Rules And Regulations :

1. Topic will be given on the spot.

2. Involves writing in English and Bengali.

3. Maximum word limit is 350.

4. Pages will be provided by the Virtuoso 2 Committee.

5. Participants need not mention their name or any information other than the registration Id in their response sheet.

6. Results will be published after 7 days of the competition i.e. on 6/3/2011 in our blogspot [www.pandulipi-scintilla.blogspot.com]

VIRTUOSO 2 @ QUIZ

Rules And Regulations :

Topic of the quiz is -“LITERATURE”.

1. There will be 2 phases [ prelims and finals ] in the competition.

2. Prelims will be written and among them the best teams will be selected for the final round.

3. Decision of the quiz co-ordinators will be the final.

4.Arguments against their decisions will lead to disqualification.

5.There are 5 rounds [ dry round 1 , dry round 2 , audio , visual and pic-clause ]

VIRTUOSO 2 @ PRESS CONFERENCE

RULES AND REGULATIONS :

1. ITS INDIVIDUAL EVENT.
2.TIME DURATION IS 4(FOUR) MINUTES FOR EACH PARTICIPANTS .
3.NO CHANGE OF TOPIC IS ALLOWED ONCE CHIT IS CHOSEN.
4. PARTICIPANTS CANNOT USE ANY DOCUMENTS OR PAPER WITH THEM WHILE COMPETITION IS GOING ON.
5. COMMITTEE HOLDS EVERY RIGHT TO CANCEL PARTICIPATION TO PARTICIPANTS FOR MISBEHAVING.
6. JUDGES DECISION ARE FINAL .
7. AUDIENCE CAN ASK QUESTION BUT RELEVANT FROM TOPIC

VIRTUOSO 2 @ DEBATE

TOPIC FOR DEBATE : " Social networking connections but no face to face interaction ?"

Rules And Regulations :

1. Each Team comprises of 2 ( for and against ) members.
2. Team can have students of two different colleges.
3. Each member can speak for 4 mins ( 3 mins - views + 1min - rebut ).
4. The order of speakers will be done by lottery after registration.
5. A team performs together with the speaker for the motion speaking first followed by against speaker.
6. The first team will get there opportunity to rebut at the end of the competition i.e. they will be allotted 2 mins at the completion of other participants.
   
7. The competition involves only one round.
   

VIRTUOSO 2

To enrich the literature and improve relations with best college across North Bengal Pandulipi , is organising "VIRTUOSO 2" on 27 th February , 2011 at Academic Block , J.G.E.C.
COMPETITIONS : 1. CREATIVE WRITING [ENGLISH AND BENGALI]
2. DEBATE [TEAM OF 2 MEMBERS]
3. PRESS CONFERENCE
4. LITERATURE QUIZ [TEAM OF 2 MEMBERS]

Rules and regulations along with the topic of Debate will be uploaded on 19/02/2011

PRIZE MONEY WORTH INR 8,000 TO BE WON !

COME , LEARN AND ENRICH !

The Third World ….Institute of Technology

How often do you find a college so variant of a college, an engineering college rather?

Well, some might say ‘rarely’. But, the fact is ‘more often than not’. Yes, as a matter of fact.

Welcome to ‘Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College’. The JGEC. The JGEC with its share of

shabby buildings, unruly crowd(read students),horrible canteen food, terrible hostels, insanitary

washrooms, mooing cows, oh! the beautiful pastures , bawdy loners, skimmed internet fanatics ,

scourge faculty and geeky losers . Over a decade, this facade. We stand now here at JGEC!

But suddenly there is a breath of fresh air. If recent acclaims are to be believed we are resurgent.

As in India, we are a progressive culture. And, this institute of ours is no exception. The World Bank

much impressed by the proceedings is up with huge funds. Big bucks indeed! All they want is to

improve the technical education scenario. And, oblivious of the logistics and developments at the root level the funds are flowing in. They, the authorities claim to have started various infrastructure improvement and college development projects. Going by their verbatim, ‘ College would be a deemed university by-2012’.But is it? Are they serious? Do we see even an iota of their highlighted endeavour?

Well, the answers to these are obvious. A big fat ‘No’

.

Now, coming to why is the administration falling short of keeping its promises. There isn’t a static

state so far the activities are concerned. But the approach isn’t a holistic one.

All we see is a lethargic facelift for the sake of development. The roads are being broadened((Oh!really?) , walls whitewashed and fields fenced ( remember those are the pastures for the mooing cows, so may be they need some kind of protection! ). The honourable decision making body takes pleasure in doing that. And they smirk oozing with complacency .But, is this really a necessary step? Don’t we need to prioritize mending the lacklusture image of our college? Or, simply sort out the dearth of faculty and logistics at par national standards if not international. So why not work keeping pace with times. Something that the administration just doesn’t seem to understand.

It is always easier said than done. But we need to take vital steps to ensure that we aren’t left

behind as ‘The third world IIT’.We need to figure out the shortcomings, accept the failures and make peace with our ‘not so glittery’ past. Just keep pushing, yes, the battle is uphill. But we do need to see what’s waiting is at the other side of this hill. We will then see the JGEC, the JGEC with its share of shabby buildings, unruly crowd(read students),horrible canteen food, terrible hostels, insanitary

washrooms, mooing cows, beautiful pastures and swampy puddles , bawdy loners, skimmed

internet fanatics ,scourge faculty and geeky losers but also with mighty standards.

Standards that would speak volumes .So, don’t let the authorities shrug, just wipe off the smugness!

SKYSCRAPERS, HIGH-RISES, AND A BENGALI MIND

What I am about to put in words in the next few paragraphs , may not necessarily be exactly what you would call a modern development of science, but I believe it to be the essence of innovation.

Today, high-rises crop up around us at an abominable speed. Humankind seems to have a difficulty in satiating its soaring ambition to reach greater and even greater heights. Well, long live our so called civilization, and our so called humanity; A hundred stories above you, and a million sad stories in one thousand minds around you, but I’d rather not go out of topic.

The thing is, today we cannot imagine a metropolitan city without skyscrapers. We wonder at their immense heights, and often do we admire their architecture. But trust me, they were as complicated and cumbersome as they look, until a certain person came into the limelight and revolutionized the entire idea of their construction.

Fazlur Rahman Khan was born in Shibchar, Dhaka Division, Bangladesh on 3^rd April, 1929. In a conservative middle class family, where education is usually the ornament of one’s personality, Khan grew up and lived up to his family tradition in flying colors. He pursued his undergraduate degree at Bengal Engineering College, University of Calcutta (now B.E.S.U., Shibpur), and attained his bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the Engineering Faculty of the University of Dhaka (now B.U.E.T) in 1951. Subsequently, two scholarships, one of them being a Fulbright, allowed him to travel to the United States, to pursue post-graduate studies, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Khan, as shining as he always was, earned two Master degrees by 1954, one in Structural Engineering, and another in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. He further obtained his Ph.D. Degree in Structural Engineering in the following years.

Khan was employed by a firm called Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, in 1955 and he started working as an engineer for the first time at Chicago, Illinois. Though some of his most notable works are in the United States, he is also renowned for his works in Saudi Arabia, and Bangladesh.

What makes Fazlur Rahman Khan such a remarkable persona in the civil engineering society is his innovation and research in the field of multistoried buildings (Pardon me, for henceforth, I am compelled to move on to more technical terms). By the 1960’s, Multistoried buildings were already very popular and they seemed to be a plausible solution to the ever growing population of the world. But an engineer must consider ten other possibilities, besides aesthetic and social reasons, before he would build something as immense as a skyscraper. For example, one of the major problems with very tall buildings lies in the lateral forces they are subjected to. These may be wind forces, earthquake forces, possible sudden loads, and it is only obvious that for the building to be safe, it must be able to sustain such loads effectively.

As I have already stated, by the 1960’s, skyscrapers had already made a successful entrance into the construction sector. One of the most notable skyscrapers built in the 1931 was the Empire State Building. However, there lied one object of concern. Such buildings were, until then, made of rigid jointed steel space frames. Steel, being a very costly raw material, posed a problem where extremely tall buildings (of say more than 35 stories) were involved. It is at this juncture that Khan makes an appearance, with his ingenious theory of “Tube Structural System”.

Khan’s theory was based on the fact, that for any tall building, the entire wall perimeter of the structure is used to simulate a thin walled equivalent tube structure. This thin external wall (the word thin not in its usual meaning, of course) is informally referred to as the “skin” of the building. Such buildings tend to be much more efficient, economical, have reduced penalty for taller heights, and increased resistance to lateral forces. Khan further divided his tube structure into three categories, and some of the greatest buildings of the latter part of the 20^th century followed suit of his theory.

The first category, the framed tube structure, the very first one Khan is known to have implemented into a real design, was an instant success. In such a structure, three, four or more, frames were joined at their edges to form a vertical tube like structure. Each of the concerned frames is cantilevered from the foundation towards the top. The remaining periphery of the structure is formed by exterior columns aligned along the extern of the building. These columns are further inter-connected, as well as with the frames. As such, any lateral load, such as earthquake or wind load is resisted by the structure as one single unit. Such buildings, thus, are automatically much more efficient from seismic point of view. In addition to this, the tubular structure is quite stable, hence eliminating the need for interior columns and shear walls. This enables more usable floor space. Another wonderful aspect of such buildings lies in the fact that, in spite of the extern of the building being occupied by columns, about 50% of the perimeter is available for openings such as windows and doors. For larger openings, the exterior column setup requires some minor modification. Possibly, the most notable Framed Tube Structure, (though not designed by Khan himself), was the World Trade Centre.

The Tube and X-Bracing structure was a modification of the framed tube structure. Here, exterior columns are more spaced apart, but are interconnected by cross bracings (X- Shaped truss like members). In such buildings, the so called skin (the thin walled extern) of the tubular structures becomes vivid as an integral part of the structure itself. Here, nearly all the lateral loads are transferred to the exterior columns, thus almost eliminating the need for interior columns in the building. Such a tubular system enables the building to stand upright during earthquakes and wind-storms. Also, X-Braced tube structures have more available allowance for openings. The John Hancock centre in Chicago, designed by Khan in 1965 (completed in 1969) is the most notable cross braced tubular structure. Not only is it noted as a high performance high-rise, but also as an architectural icon. From another point of view, John Hancock centre was much more economically sound, requiring 145 Kg of steel per square meter, compared to the Empire State Building (an earlier rigid steel framed structure) which required 206 Kg of steel per square meter.

The final and most important variation was the bundled tube structure. It is not only the most economically efficient type of structure among the three, but also the most versatile type for its allowances of architectural essence. Tubes no longer needed to be box like, since in such structures, bundles of exterior columns (interconnected as well as intra-connected), could take any possible shape at the extern. The most notable building of this type is the Sears Tower (currently known as Willis Tower), designed by Khan again, and completed 1974. At the time of its construction, it was the tallest building of the United States.

From then on, the influence of Khan’s tubular structure spread around the world like wildfire. Some of the most notable structures in the entire world followed along his lines of design. These include the World Trade Centre, Petronas Twin Towers, Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), Jin Mao Building, Onterie Centre, One Magnificent Mile, Citigroup Centre, Bank of China Tower, and the Burj Khalifa (which is currently the tallest building in the World).

Khan continued his wizardry in the field of structural engineering in the subsequent years. The first “Sky Lobby” was also designed by Khan. Buildings with sky lobbies at that time include the WTC, Twin Towers, and the Taipei 101. John Hancock centre also featured a sky lobby in its 44^th floor. Khan’s dream of “people working and living in the sky” had finally come true. Khan also designed the Hajj Terminal, King Abdulaziz International Airport, and King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. He was awarded the “Aga Khan Award” for his works at Jeddah. Most notably, Khan’s very first design in his career, the “DeWitt Chestnut Apartments” in Chicago, and his very last, The Onterie Centre and One Magnificent Mile were astonishingly, concrete framed tubular structures.

Fazlur Rahman Khan was as versatile a human being as he was an engineer. After an early death on March 27^th, 1982, at an age of 52, the world of structural engineering lost a pioneer in his field. During his lifetime, he was cited five times among “Men Who Served the Best Interests of the Construction Industry” by Engineering-News Record. He was named “Construction’s Man of the Year” in 1972. He was posthumously awarded The John Parmer Award in 1987 by the Structural Engineer’s Association of Illinois. The Government of Bangladesh posthumously awarded him the “Independence Day Medal”, the highest honor of the state, for creating public opinions and amassing emergency fund during its War of Liberation in 1971. All records of his pioneering work, which are included in manuscripts, sketches, audio tapes and slides, found in his office at the time of his death, are currently held in custody by the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.

It is only fitting and respectable, that I conclude my article with one of the sayings of Fazlur R. Khan himself,

“The technical man must not be lost in his own technology; he must be able to appreciate life, and life is an art, drama, music,

And most importantly, people”

Dr. Fazlur Rahman Khan was honored by U.S. President Barack Obama in his speech at Cairo, Egypt in 2009.