For whatever it's worth here is an excerpt of an Indian analyst's opinion
On INS Vikramaditya, the firebricks are all right & are performing as expected. It’s the glue-material used for fixing the China-made firebricks to the refractory masonry in boiler furnaces that’s malfunctioned. And that happened because this new combination (firebricks + glue-material) was never tested & validated before in Russia by the boiler’s Russian OEM. Therefore, two parties are to blame here: the Russian OEM for proceeding with an untested solution; & the Indian Navy’s Directorate of Marine Engineering for insisting on adopting this combination without prior design/engineering validation. China-made Firebricks & Ukraine-fabricated steam piping are also being successfully used on board the PLA Navy’s Liaoning (16) aircraft carrier & there have not been any such malfunctions thus far, therefore it stands to reason that it is the Russian OEMs, in their haste to deliver INS Vikramaditya to the IN by December 4, 2012, have made avoidable engineering compromises.