Imbibing Research Component in the Energy Systems Engineering Graduate Programme

Abstract

Engineering education in unison with societal needs forms the bedrock to developmental activities and progress of human race. The transient nature of real world demands innovative solutions that makes it imperative for continuous knowledge exploration in science and technology. Engineering curriculum must sensitize graduates to be inquisitive to evolve solutions through application of their domain knowledge and exploration of new frontiers. Engineering research involves a systematic investigative approach to enhance the knowledge domain directed towards solution of existing problems. The research at graduate schools can be categorized as Basic research and Applied research depending on whether it establishes the "proof of concept" or delivers new processes, products or techniques. Government of India has initiated several measures for import substitution and indigenous technology development through financial assistance to research activities at academic institutions and industry. The graduate programme in Energy Systems Engineering with focus on renewable energy conversion has taken initiatives to imbibe research component into its curriculum.

The theory courses in the programme have adopted a component that gives an exposure to the research trends in the respective areas through review of research articles. The project work course during the second year of the programme was meticulously designed to provide a mechanism that generated interest to pursue research activities. The periodic assessment through well-defined rubrics to incorporate the good mix of experimentation and computation segments helped in better execution of the project work. The strategy encouraged use of open source hardware tools like Raspberry Pi and Arduino along with software tools like Scilab and Open-foam in the project courses. This work summarizes instillation of research component for attainment of the Graduate Attributes PO4, PO5, PO6 and PO8 through execution of project work at different levels of the Programme. The results have shown that experiential learning strategy in project work has brought a positive change in the learning styles of students indicating their enthusiastic contributions.