UK institute publishes IIT-M professor’s digital book

The prestigious Institute of Physics, UK has published a digital book on photoelasticity authored by a professor from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M). The book brings out the re-emergence of photoelasticity, its use in diverse fields and its importance in teaching concepts of stress analysis to students to understand the field nature of stress.

Prof K Ramesh, ‘Mahesh K Chair Professor’ in the Department of Applied Mechanics, authored the book Developments in Photoelasticity – A Renaissance, which is based on decades of active research by him and his students at IIT-M.

The IIT-M said the digital book brings out in one volume, the use of Photoelasticity to understand complex problems such as understanding biological systems through their locomotion, which can help develop flexible robots for disaster management, improve agricultural production by understanding the stresses developed in plant roots, and the role of needle shape in epidural injections, among other applications.

Diverse applications of Photoelasticity from many key applications in mechanical sciences as well as neurobiology, plant biology, biomaterials, biomimetics, granular materials, soft matter, glass stress analysis, and rapid prototyping for complex model fabrication are also discussed in this book.

“What is really striking about this book is the applications of this research, which range from plant biology to semiconductor packaging. This can be a game-changer, when implemented in the field. I am sure many students will take this up as a career and I look forward to many start-ups coming up in this field,” IIT-M Director Prof V Kamakoti said.

Sharing the need for such books, the author said engineering colleges across the country need to restart their laboratory on Photoelasticity – in view of the great strides the technique has made in the last two decades and in offering hope for solving emerging problems in diverse fields. “Instead of a real laboratory, many could benefit by setting up a virtual polariscope at a fraction of the cost of the actual setup,” he added.

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