NEW YORK: A book signing event for the text book "Introduction to Pipe Stress Analysis" written by Houston based Indian American leader Sockalingam Sam Kannappan was held at Madras Pavilion, Sugarland, Texas April 22.

Tom Reid, Mayor of Pearland who released the book and presented the first copy to Meenakshi Kannappan, praised the services of Kannappan who is a multi-various personality always ready to help the community. S. M. Gavai, Consul General of India at Houston said Sam Kannappan’s community activities are well known and his contribution to his profession is note worthy.

Kannappan’s classmates from the University of Texas at Austin, Dr Guntur S. Rao and Dr Dinesh Pejaver said they knew Kannappan for over 40 years and he had a penchant for community work and reaching out to mainstream population of the nation by his sincere and dedicated work. Forest bank Market President Micheal Clements said he knew Kannappan for 18 years and their friendship grew through the years thanks to his amiable nature. Attorney Robert Ketchand said that he worked with Kannappan in helping stranded Indian sailors to travel back to India in 1998.

Congressman Nick Lampson’s Chief of Staff in Houston, Mini Timmaraju presented a proclamation on behalf of the Congressman to Kannappan. Kannappan had taught stress analysis at the University of Maryland and University of Houston. Kannappan said his book was out of print and was sold a premium price around $825 a copy.

 "I decided to re print it and sell for $50.This book is very useful for engineers who want to get in to Piping Engineering field with a lot of job openings." He said his week-long course at University of Maryland was very successful. There is a severe shortage of Pipe Stress Engineers and the course would help attendees to understand the fundamentals and how to apply the results from Software program output.

The course covered on a range of subjects from how to improve piping flexibility to reduce stress levels and decrease piping loads on the equipment nozzles, he added. University of North Carolina is now offering the course and interest to learn Pipe Stress Analysis has gone up many fold with the increase of project activities. SRM University in Tamil Nadu, India is planning to offer a course on the subject, Kannappan added.