On March 26th ‘Engineer’s Hub’, a forum organized with the aim of developing and guiding the young graduate students and fresher of Civil Engineering community by enabling sharing of the experiences of the Senior Civil Engineers in the field, conveened a meet in Anna University. Renowned luminaries from different Engineering Background were present along with a good number of Stundents and Freshers. Addressing them, Dr. Elizabeth Verghese, Chancellor, Hindustan University in sharing her expereience with Stundent and Fresher Engineers, related her experience of joining the Highways department as a fresher, where she found her learning at the college, as nothing before what she learned from her new found profession. She cautioned the young engineers to beware of the perils posed to their profession from slowdown due to global financial crisis and environmental cum humanitarian issues caused by technology, which she termed as a doubled edged sword, capable of causing as much mass destruction, as that of its benefits. She also cautioned them against taking drastic measures in their personal lives because of inability to stand stress levels in academy or the overt expectation levels of parents.

Dr. P. Mannar Jawahar, Vice-Chancellor, Anna University in his message sent to the meeting to be read, reiterated his belief that the 'Hub' would be instrumental in dissemination and use of technology.Dr. G.B.Jeyaprakash Narain, during his speech reiterated the importance of sustainable development and asked the engineers to be aware of the big picture in their activities as they are required to be multifaceted in terms of their abilities, activities and executions. Er.S.Jeyaraman, Engineering chief and  chief Engineer (General) PWD, Tamil Nadu, Er. P.Hariraj, Chief Engineer General, Highways, Er. Senthilnayagam, who has been instrumental in the organization of the 'Civil Engineering Hub'Er.Kumar, chief Engineer Tamil Nadu Police Housing Corporation and Chairman, HUB, Chief Enginer,Housing Board, Mr. Arasu, Retired Chief Engineer of PWD, Dr. Premalatha, Asst. Professor, Anna University, Office bearers of 'Engineers Hub'Er.Dhanaseelan, Er.Rajarajeswaran, Er.Sundarapandian and many other prominent Engineers felicitated the 'Hubs' activity. Prof. Santhakumar during his presentation provided suggestions to the young Engineers, that were real eye-openers to the audience as well.

As he began his presentation, the first slide of his presentation was that of a cricket Stadium in Guyana,West Indies that was built from a scratch to the requisite specifications, on a record time before the commencement of an important cricket match series that, at that time was just 4 months away. The project bagged by Shapoorji Pallonji and conceived by Architect C R. Narayana Rao was made possible with the team work of the best minds and skill in the industry. The team chose to shun reinforced concrete right in the beginning, considering the time constraint of 4 months and resorted to steel for structure,timber for piles and fiberglass for roof,ensuring the speedy completion of the work in two and half months flat, well before the stipulated time limit.

Citing the example of his students, one of whom did his thesis in 'Finite element analysis' and eventually ended up as top designer of Ford motor company, and that of a second student who did a commendable job in researching 'Wind effects on Structures' and eventually found himself 'Chasing Tornadoes' and assessing the damage they caused in their wake as he worked for an insurance company, the professor reiterated the importance of 'Multi-disciplinary thinking' to achieve great results. This real life experience proved as an ideal instance of the benefits borne due to broadminded outlook of Civil  engineers.

The next slide was that of a dam project where the contractor had quit the project after finding the cost of the 'Coffer dam' to be far more than that of the finished structure itself. Upon being called up for solution by authorities, the professor has suggested the 'Bottomup method' due to which the top portion of the dam was built initially and subsequent portions were built later on using the 'Diaphragm wall' as a coffer dam to keep away water and eventually finishing with the first and second stages of foundation to complete the project, when the structure itself was able to hold water immediately after execution, resulting in a 100% cost saving by averting the use of a 'Coffer Dam'.

In his next slide the professor described about the construction of a sprawling industrial facility where after the finishing of columns, a vertical crack was noticed in all the 250 odd columns at the point of support of the horizontal beams. He went on to explain the modus of resolving the issue on the principle reinforcing the columns appropriately enabling them to take the sideward stress of the load.After executing the process in one column the contractor was asked to replicate the same in all the other ones resulting in the resolution of a very serious issue threatening to cost a lot of time and money.

The next slide was that of Honkong Bank Building near Beach Chennai, which was a building of heritage built two decades before by Robert Clive using girders brought for this purpose from Birmingham. In order to save the building from demolition by reinforcing its strength, a load test was performed on the building with 'Deflectometers' and then measures were taken to adequately strengthen the structure whose girders were found to be strong enough to sustain load. After a final load test to prove the enhanced strength to carry load, the building was turned over to its owners with certification to its new found prowess, as it saved a lot of cost and time apart from saving the heritage building itself.

Dr. Santhakumar concluded his presentation on a comparison of knowledge to that of 'Soup', in that the content of a whole lot of domains and backgrounds are to merge in arriving at it and said 'Engineer's hub'should behave like a spoon that feed this soup to the 'Student' mouths. Thus the wonderful analogy brought the event to its conclusion, with the promise of perpetuating the knowledge and experience of renowned senior Engineers by bridging them with the minds of young student and fresher engineers.