Established in : 1965.
 

MANDATE

• To carry out application-oriented research, and develop know-how on analysis, design, construction and testing of all types of structures.
• To undertake contract research and consultancy work related to structural designs, analysis, and specialized training.
• To act as a clearing house for the latest knowledge in stucture engineering.
• To conduct specialized training courses for in-service engineers.

MAIN FACILITIES

• Heavy testing laboratory with a heav duty test floor for testing protrtype structures.
• Concrete composites laboratory with a chemical laboratory, polymer impregnation equipment and testing machines.
• Experimental stress analysis laboratory with equipment for techniques such as photoelasticity, holographic, interferometry, specle interferometry and moire fringes ( for strain measurement ).
• Structural dynamics laboratory with a medium duty test floor and unlaxial shaking-table facility servo-controlled electro- hydraullic actuator of 100 kN capacity with facilities for high speed data acquisition and control.
• Fatigue testing laboratory with heavy duty floor and reaction walls, and servo controlled electro-hydraullic actuator of 1000kN capacity with facilities for high speed data acquisition and control.
• Computer centre with UNIX based mini computers for CAD work, multi processor systems with 4 CPUs, 32MB globally shared memory and IGBB disk storage for developing parallel computing software for structural and graphics analysis.
• Construction enginnering laboratory with an outdoor casting yard and pretensioning bed and non-destructive testing equipment.
• Wind engineering laboratory with a boundry layer wind tunnel of test section of 1.8m x 2.5m, to generate wind speed upto 60 m/s and a mobile laboratory for field measurement and experiments.
• Tower Testing and Research Station at Tsisulum for testing towers upto a height of 65m, and a base of 20m x 20m using electro-hydraullic servo system.

SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENTS                          

• Risk analysis of cyclonic wind speeds and development of cyclonic wind maps for the coastal regions of India.
• An atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel (BLWT) has been designed, and the structure workon the tunnel has been successfully completed under a UNDP assisted project on ' Engineering of structure for mitigating damage due to cyclone '.
• Diagnosis of vibration problems and recomendations for machine founadations o fpower plant TG installations, and seiemic qualification of gate valves used in nuclear power plants.
• assessment of corrosion-fatigue strength of stiffened steel tubular nodes used in offshore structures; testing and evaluation carried out for the Institute of Engineering and Ocean Technology ( ONGC ) and parallel studies undertaken for the Department of Ocean Development.
• Development of micro fatigue crack sin steel and nickel tubes for Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (Kalpakkam)  toward s indegenous development of leak simulators.
• Experimental and theological invstigations on (i) ASTRA VMX frame, (ii) XLS frame (two wheller chasis frames) including dynamic response analysis for TVS-Suzuki Ltd.
• Development of interactive software packages for structural analysis and design. More than 400 software packages for structural analysis and design have been released to various government agencies, public sector undertakings and the private sector.
• The Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, has recommended SERC Madras's suthentication of design of 15m self-supporting masts and 40m towers as a precondition for tower manufactires in India to prticipate in tenders.

DIRECTOR
Dr R. Narayanan
          .

CONTACT ADDRESS
CSIR Campus, TTTI, Taramani, P. O. Madras 600 113.
Telephone: (091)44-42352139, 2352175.
Telegram : SERCENTRE, MADRAS.
Telex    : 041-8906 CSIR IN; 041-26163 TTRS IN.
Fax      : (091)44-2350508.
E-mail   : sercm @ sirnetm.ernet.in.