Intelligent Structural Health Management of Aerospace, Mechanical and Civil Structures

During the month long PIRE-ISHM India research program I learned and grew more than I ever anticipated. Each day that passed was a new, learning experience that I will be able to take back with me to the United States and use in my future endeavors. I’m not going to lie, the trip was undoubtedly harder than I expected coming in, but a growing experience nonetheless. I believe that you grow the most when you struggle a little bit and when you are put into uncomfortable situations, and this trip to India was definitely not the most luxurious and comfortable place to visit.

The airplane ride to India was long and tiring but not as bad as I had expected. We arrived to Chennai late on August 5th and stayed at a very nice hotel for the first few days because IIT Madras was currently still on their summer vacation. It was a nice way to get accustomed to the country and be slowly introduced to the different customs and ways of living of the people in India. The hotel was very good with catering to foreigners who probably weren’t too accustomed to the Indian food or customs yet, with their many amenities and wide variety of American food along with the traditional Indian cuisines. These first few days were quite enjoyable because our group was able to venture out and experience all the exciting things that India had to offer. We were all eager to learn and visit all the places surrounded Chennai before starting our research program on campus at IIT Madras.

A few of the places we were able to travel to during our three and a half week trip included: a trip down to a popular tourist attraction in the city of Pondicherry, a long train ride to Bangalore and countless trips to local shops and malls in the city of Chennai. I thoroughly enjoyed these random excursions because I was able to learn about the Indian culture and buy lots of cheap Indian goodies. The whole experience was quite eye opening and something new and exciting seemed to emerge every single day. I enjoyed going on tours of some of their temples and driving through gorgeous rural roads lined with palms tree and the scenery of the enormous beach. I was excited to venture out to a more industrialized city than Chennai and enjoyed our trip to Bangalore the most. We were able to tour the large GE facility located there and see how the work environment in a large company like GE in India was like. It was interesting to see all the different departments of the company and the new technologies being researched.

We finally moved into the guesthouses at IIT Madras when classes finally started on the 9th of August. I was surprised to see that the campus was located in the middle of a national park with forests and trees surrounding you and animals crossing the streets day and night. Once we were able to get settled into our own rooms at the guesthouse we began testing our metal samples and collecting countless amounts of data. The lab was located not too far off from the guesthouse, and little did we know that the Mechanical Engineering Lab would basically be our second home for the next 3 weeks. We were able to get to know many of the graduate students attending the university, and they were all very eager to help us out in any way possible. It amazes me how respectful and accommodating everyone on campus was towards our needs, and how open all the students and professors were to helping our group. It was also interesting to see how their mechanics lab differed from ours and how everyday life of these students compared to what I’m use to at Northwestern.

Overall, the trip to India was an experience that I would have never gotten elsewhere. I learned a great deal about the Indian culture and was humbled by the fact that we are so blessed and fortunate in the United States. Little things like clean water and air conditioning were hard to come by in Chennai, and I never realized how much we take advantage of such things. I was able to learn and grow not only as an engineering student but develop into a better person through these experiences. I would highly recommend this program to any student with even the slightest interest in doing some sort of research or work abroad in a foreign country.