deployment of the PLA Navy ships in the - Information Resource ...

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Year of the Lord 2009. If there ever was a spare hour
anywhere in between, it was taken up by preparing
briefs and presentations for one and all, up and down
the chain of command, and even laterally, at times.
The brain storming sessions, reading up on the
equipment fit of the ships, poring over drawings and
carrying out technical trouble shooting was relegated
to lunch or after ‘secure’ !!!
Be that as it may, despite the cribbing at the
‘unnecessary’ extra load, when one looks back at the
year gone by, it was with a feeling of immense
satisfaction. Never would so much of training,
adventure and personal development have taken
place in a unit of this size, that too with a never-beforeload
of six frontline warships and five water barges
under construction.
Technical Papers
Lt Cdr Hariharan’s paper on ‘Design Parameters
of Water Jet Propulsion’ was accepted for publication
at the National Seminar on Shipbuilding at Jaipur in
Sep 09. Where he found time to research the paper,
during the hectic activity for the administrative
arrangements and safe launching of Yard 702 (Kochi),
will remain one of the unsolved mysteries of time.
When as a ‘reward’ he was nominated for a week long
course at Valsura and to give a presentation at the
Shipbuilding CEP at Shivaji thereafter in mid-Oct 09,
he did not know whether to laugh or to cry.
At the same National Seminar as above, Captain
SS Chitale presented a paper titled ‘Integrated Full
Electric Propulsion‘, his first ever. This spurred him on
to present another paper on ‘Interactive Electronic
Technical Manuals (IETM)‘ at an International
Conference at DIAT Pune in Jan 10. He is now writing
a BR on Standardisation of Electrical Inspection
Procedures on ships under construction.
Cdr S Ganeshan’s paper on ‘Preservation of
Equipment during Shipbuilding’ was first presented
at a Workshop on Shipbuilding’ in WOT (Kol) / GRSE
in Oct 09. He ascribed the success of his paper to the
serenity of the Himalayas during the Gaumukh Glacier
Trek, where he was hit by a number of ideas all of
which he used in his paper !!! After refinement, he
presented it at the International Conference at DIAT
Pune in Jan 10. Buoyed by the positive reaction to his
work, he is now enthusiastically working on his next
project ‘Challenges thrown up by Modular
Construction’. Did I mention that he also was deputed
to the Shipbuilding CEP at Shivaji to give a day long
lecture on Shafting Alignment, a subject on which he
can now claim mastery over.
Cdr (Dr) PR Kulkarni (now Capt.), the Thinker of
the unit, was awarded the ‘Sam Dotiwala Prize for the
Best Technical Paper 2009’ by the Institute of Naval
Architects. He also delivered a technical paper ‘Quality
Inspection Procedures in Shipbuilding’ at the
Shipbuilding Workshop at GRSE / WOT Kolkatta. For
those not in the know, Dr Kulkarni is the Editor of the
Journal of Ship Technology, in his spare time i.e. from
midnight to dawn. Where he found time and energy
to do all this, amidst personally calculating, checking
and rechecking the myriad calculations involved in the
launching of Yard 702 (Kochi) in Sep 09, is something
he is not willing to tell. Apart from guiding a PhD
student, he also authored / co-authored the following
papers :
• “Wind tunnel Study on the Interac¬tion of Hot
Exhaust from Funnel with Superstructure of a
Naval Ship”, International Conference on
Ocean Engineering, IIT Ma¬dras, 01-05 Feb 09.
• ‘Chronology of Indian Shipping’, Journal of Ship
Technology, Jan 09.
Motivated by the ‘Stealth Technology’ they were
dealing with on Yard 617, Cdr Bhupesh Tater (now
Capt.) and Vineeth Aerat came out with a informative
paper on Stealth Technology titled ‘ Signature
Management and the Shipbuilder’ for the Journal of
Marine Engineering. The duo authored a number of
path breaking documents, including the
‘Standardisation of Inspection Procedures in Warship
Building’ for their respective disciplines of Engineering
and Hull. Their partnership was broken in Jun 09,
when Cdr Tater was transferred out for his sea time.
Personnel of the WNC were updated on a wide
spectrum of technological advances by the officers of
WOT (Mb) during the Monsoon lecture Series as
follows :
• ‘Interfacing & Commissioning of IMCS on P17
Ships’ by Cdr S Ganesan.
• ‘Smoke Nuisance on Delhi Class of Ships’ by
Cdr PR Kulkarni.
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