Monday, January 2, 2023

Experiencing Wind Tunnel Testing of Structures - RWDI Visit

It was back in 2021 November, when a bunch of students including me got introduced to the firm RWDI and also the world of wind engineering through a webinar under ASCE banner.  In a time frame of almost an year we battled waves of covid and many mutations and the exhausting academic schedule and finally the battle bore fruit on 28th December 2022 when we could actually in reality see stuffs we usually watch on Discovery channels regarding building construction. 

After working on fixing a proper date we lost many committee members due to inconveniences.  So we were hit by the number of members coming in for this visit. So it was a group of ten students, two teachers and two drivers who all jumped into the FISAT mini college bus which took us all to the state capital. The bus has speed limiter and could only go at max speed of 50. But the group we had on board made us forget the Kerala heat and the boredom of travelling hundreds of kilometres. The only person on board who felt motion sickness was also the person who spoke endlessly in the front row. The topics in their debate cum discussion fluctuated between engineering technicals to general knowledge to life in general. Well I was referring to Neeraja ma’am and Unni sir, the latter having motion sickness.

Students had good time dozing off and gossiping back in the bus. Finally battling the traffic and heat we reached the facility in Kinfra park by 12pm. We were directly taken to a conference room and we were joined by the head of the Trivandrum firm Mr Rahul PS who explained to us the fundamentals of wind engineering and showed its growing importance in the world of construction. Rahul was a calm and composed person who had the rock solid experience in this field which very few in the nation has in reality. We had a walk through over the different stages in wind tunnel testing, right from building modelling in software, 3D printing and to the testing part. We were just witnessing a million dollar engineering business which involved hardcore analysis. 


The team who was there to assist us was very sweet and we took a couple of snaps with the team around the wind tunnel. It was an experience that all budding civil engineers must watch. Soon we waved our goodbyes and were leaving and that’s when Unni sir was gifted a 3D model that was printed, a building that was previously tested in the tunnel.



We got out of Kinfra and the next destination undoubtedtly was a pitstop for hungry tummies. We stopped at a famous restaurant (Thakaaram) which boasted of a flight hangar concept and a literal life size model of an Air bus flight in the middle. 

The food was sumptuous as we ordered kerala and Arabic cuisine on our table and recharged ourselves for the next meal. On the way we kept pestering the teachers to take us to the beach but the offer was turned down since it was already dark.We travelled for another couple of hours, had good tea and then later a lavish dinner from vytilla and reached college by 12am. Looking back into the day, even though we had to travel long distance the visit was worth it for the fun we had with friends and moreover the kind of knowledge we gathered from the industry.

Looking eagerly forward for such visits.

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Gokul Ajith, S7CE

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