Gems of Structural Engineering

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Prof. C. V. R. Murty

General:-

When we say ‘Earthquake Tips’ naturally we recollect

the name of one of Gems of Structural Engineering – i.e.

Dr. C.V.R. Murthy. These tips became so much popular

that every new website on earthquake engineering has

made a note of them. Here in a small attempt is made to

present an overview of the Profile of creator of these tips

– Prof. C.V.R. Murty. I am sure all the readers will find

this very informative and inspiring.

Primary and higher education:-

Professor C V R Murty was born at Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh in the year 1963 on

5th

September, the Teachers’ Day. It is most befitting that he chose a career in the

noble profession of teaching. His early days in school were spent at Bilaspur in

Chhattisgarh where his father was posted as part of the Indian Railway Engineering

Service. Later he spent his high school days at Kolkata.

Professor Murty completed his Bachelor of Technology degree in Civil

Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1984. He

was a brilliant student with excellent academic performance. He

further continued in the same institute for his Master of Technology

degree in Structural Engineering in 1986. His Master of Technology

thesis was on behaviour of large panel precast wall.

Fascinated by the challenging railway projects his father used to carry out, Professor

Murty was extremely keen to follow in his father’s footsteps. But, academics

beckoned him and he moved to the prestigious California Institute of Technology

(Caltech), USA, to complete his Doctor of Philosophy in Civil

Engineering in 1992. His PhD thesis titled “Nonlinear Seismic

Behaviour of Steel Planar Moment Resisting Frames” was an

important contribution in the area of seismic behaviour of steel

buildings. Working with pioneers of earthquake engineering

provided enough inspiration for him to return back to his motherland

and work hard for improvement of earthquake-resistant design in

India.

Experience:-

After his PhD from Caltech, Professor Murty joined the

Department of Civil Engineering at Indian Institute of

Technology Delhi as a faculty member in 1992. He stayed

there for a year and then moved to the Department of Civil

Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1993.

During January 2007 – June 2008, Professor Murty served as

the Head of the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT

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Kanpur. In June 2008, he was deputed to IIT Hyderabad for bringing up the campus.

Along with Professor R.D. Koilpillai of IIT Madras, he was involved in the

development of Master Plan of the institute, starting of undergraduate program in

three disciplines namely Computer Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering

and Mechanical Engineering in the first year, and initiation of quality academic

research in the institute. Keeping the thrust on research, Professor Murty ensured the

starting of Ph.D. program as early as January 2009 and the Master of Technology

program in August 2009. He was instrumental in starting the first two sponsored

research projects at IIT Hyderabad, namely (a) “Development of High Energy Density

Li-on Batteries for Mobile Applications" jointly with International Advanced

Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), and (b)

"Information Network for Natural Disaster Mitigation and Recovery", jointly with

Kieo University and University of Tokyo.

He was also appointed as Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at

IIT Hyderabad in 2009. With his visionary ideas and unwavering efforts, Professor

Murty laid the path for the institute to become a benchmark for excellent teaching and

research standards. In July 2010, he joined Department of Civil Engineering at IIT

Madras as Professor and has been continuing there since then.

Contribution to Field:-

Professor Murty’s primary research interests have been (a) seismic behaviour of steel

and reinforced concrete (RC) structures, (b) modelling of nonlinear behaviour of

structures and (c) development of seismic design codes. His work mostly related to

the practical aspects of earthquake engineering research and implementation of the

same in the design guidelines and building codes. He has endlessly strived to improve

the interface between academic research and structural engineering practice with a

view to improve the earthquake-resistant building construction practice. Among

reinforced concrete structures, his focus has been seismic design of RC frame

multistoreyed buildings including behaviour of infilled RC frames, confinement

provisions and structural walls. He has supervised six PhD and 28 masters’ theses.

Together with Professor Sudhir K. Jain (refer the profile of Dr Jain in Gems of Structural

Engineering Series on www.sefindi.org) , Professor Murty had taken the leading initiative of

developing experimental facilities in earthquake engineering at the Structural

Engineering laboratory of IIT Kanpur. The pseudo-dynamic testing facility, which is

currently being developed at IIT Kanpur, had started on their initiative and visionary

plans.

Professor Murty has been an outstanding teacher with a rare quality of motivating and

inspiring students while making the learning most enjoyable experience. His courses

have been extremely popular among students for his innovative and novel methods of

instruction. He is a gifted teacher, who can convey even the most complex ideas by

breaking it in easy to comprehend small pieces in a very novel way. His special flair

for artwork is especially obvious in his all writing expressions. Deservingly, he was

conferred the Distinguished Teacher Award for the year 2008 by IIT Kanpur.

For Professor Murty, interaction with students has been always on top priority. He

used to work in his Departmental office till late in the night, and will be back to office

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next day early morning. Even at the time of his leaving office at 2 o’clock in the

night, if a student needs some help, he would be staying the whole night discussing

with his and try to resolve the issue. Not only technical issues, he would be always

there for any counselling requirement for the student. He would go to any extent to

inspire the students towards creativity, importance of hard work and sincerity and

learning the basics of civil engineering in order to help them build the nation for

future. To inspire the undergraduate students, he was one of the co-ordinators of the

inaugural Summer Camp at IIT Kanpur in 2001.

The synergy of Professors Sudhir K. Jain and C. V. R. Murty at IIT Kanpur had been

one of the most important periods of earthquake engineering research and education

in India. Since 1993, they have worked together for improving the Indian earthquake

engineering education in the technical institutions like engineering colleges,

polytechnics and architecture colleges. They have conducted very successful

continuing education programs on seismic design of buildings and bridges for

practicing professionals and academicians not only in India but also in neighbouring

countries. They have worked together in numerous research

and consultancy projects on seismic design of special

structures. Professor Murty actively partnered with Professor

Jain in the development of the National Information Centre

of Earthquake Engineering (NICEE) at IIT Kanpur with the

objective of dissemination of information and literature and

capacity building against earthquake disasters.

They implemented the programs under National Program for

Earthquake Engineering Education (NPEEE) successfully. As

part of NPEEE program, Professor Murty developed teaching

resource material for teachers of architecture colleges, titled

“Earthquake Design Concepts” along with Professor Andrew

W. Charleson of Victoria University of Wellington, New

Zealand.

Professor Murty was also actively involved in the development

of seismic design guidelines or various structures in the Indian

context. The joint project of IIT Kanpur and Gujarat State

Disaster Management Authority (GSDMA) brought out the

draft guidelines on seismic design and detailing of buildings,

wind and blast-resistant designs of buildings.

Professor Murty is the author of the very popular IITK-

BMTPC Earthquake Tips, a public education series on learning

earthquake resistant design and construction,

published regularly in leading national

newspaper and journals. The Tips are

testimony of Professor Murty’s exceptional talent of illustrating

complex concepts in words and figures. The book has received the

best construction technique award from the Indian Concrete Institute

in 2005.

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Like Professor Jain, generous dissemination of technical knowledge on any topic in

earthquake engineering has been one of the distinguishing features of Professor

Murty. His personal office at IIT Kanpur was always accessible to whoever is willing

to learn anything on earthquake engineering.

Together with Professor Jain, Professor Murty actively

participated in the post-earthquake reconnaissance studies carried

out after (a) 1988 Bihar, (b) 1991 Garhwal, (c) 1993 Killari, (d)

1997 Jabalpur, (e) 1999 Chamoli and (f) 2001 Bhuj earthquakes.

Along with Professor Durgesh C. Rai of IIT Kanpur, he visited

Kashmir after the devastating 2005 Kashmir earthquake for

reconnaissance studies. The benefits of the indigenous building

construction, Dhajji-Dwari system, were also highlighted after

that visit. He had been the leader of the Earthquake Earthquake

Engineering Research Institute (EERI) Recovery Reconnaissance

survey team after 2001 Bhuj earthquake, and had jointly authored

an EERI document titled “Earthquake Rebuilding in Gujarat,

India”.

Professor Murty has served as an Editor-in-Chief of the World Housing Encyclopedia

(WHE) which is an interactive web-based encyclopedia of housing construction types

in seismically active areas of the world. WHE is a project of the organisation

Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) and International Association for

Earthquake Engineering (IAEE). He is

currently continuing as a member of the

WHE board. He has been one of the

authors of the very popular WHE tutorial

document titled “AT RISK: The Seismic

Performance of Reinforced Concrete Frame Buildings with Masonry Infill Walls”.

He is also associated with Bureau of Indian Standards in a few committees on

structural design codes and National Disaster Management Agency, Government of

India, in the capacity of advisor on policy documents identifying comprehensive

action plan items for seismic safety in India.

Professor Murty has immensely contributed to the earthquake engineering education

and research in India. Focussed on educating both academicians and practising

engineers, his relentless efforts continue in making earthquake-resistant structures a

reality in Indian scenario.

References:-

a) Years spent with Professor C.V.R. Murty at IIT Kanpur

b) Citation for Distinguished Teacher Award at IIT Kanpur in 2008

c) Earthquake Tips (www.nicee.org)

Authors:-

1) Dr. Kaustubh Dasgupta (@ IIT-Guwahati)

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