TAXILA: A total of Rs110 million has been spent on upgrading laboratories at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) in Taxila.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, UET Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Niaz Ahmed Akhter said that since introducing a culture of research at the university, over 530 research papers have been published in UET this year.

Dr Akhter said that laboratories have been equipped with the latest technology including a supersonic wind tunnel, which is an induction-type supersonic wing tunnel used to investigate into subsonic and supersonic flow.

The university has also acquired a state of the art scanning electron microscope, the Tescan Vega 3, which provides high resolution, nano-scale images for the fractographic characterisation of advanced materials.

Dr Akhter said an indigenously developed composite materials’ and smart structure laboratory at the university has state of the art facilities for the manufacturing and testing of advanced composite materials and nano-materials synthesis.

He said the university’s Embedded Research and Development Centre is dedicated the cutting edge research, design, development, prototyping and testing focused on application specific integrated circuit, very large scale integration, electromagnetic simulation and related disciplines, which have been added to the university.

Dr Akhter added that the Telecommunication Innovation Centre is the outcome of collaboration between PTCL and UET. The facility hosts business-ready training systems, as well as real world operational equipment for capacity development in cutting edge research.

He said that innovative approaches have also been introduced in other departments at the university, and the UET has increased the enrolment of postgraduate students and raised the scholarship funding for full-time MSc and PhD students from Rs15,000 to Rs60,000 in order to encourage students towards research-oriented studies.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2017