Navy makes high-strength steel for warships

[thestringshredder]

Navy makes high-strength steel for warships

Indigenous manufacturing of India's largest warship — the 37,500-tonne aircraft carrier INS Vikrant — has ended the nation's decade-old reliability on import for military grade steel, needed for warship building.

When the chips were down for one of India's biggest military projects, defence scientists and Steel Authority of India Limited (Sail) joined hands to create a special steel — DMR 249 — which would henceforth be used in all Indian warship-building projects.

A calculation suggests domestic production of this type of steel saved upwards of Rs 1,000 crore in foreign exchange only in material cost for the INS Vikrant project.

The savings will be substantially more if all other ongoing warship-building projects, where this steel is being used, are taken into consideration.

The Rs 3,261-crore programme to construct the INS Vikrant at Cochin Shipyard was planned with imported steel.

But soon after the steel cutting, the plan ran into rough waters as supply of steel from Russia completely stopped because of commercial disputes.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Sail came to the rescue.

The Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory — a DRDO unit in Hyderabad — undertook the research, which led to the creation of two types of strategic steel.

While high-strength 249A-type steel is being used for IAC and other warships under construction, there is also 249B-type steel, with even higher strength, for the flight deck of the carrier. Sail made several changes in its furnace, rolling mill and heating pistons to produce this high-strength steel and roll it into sheets of thickness varying between 3 and 70 millimetre.

“Every tonne of the domestic steel costs Rs 4 lakh, while the imported steel would cost Rs 8-9 lakh per tonne,” a navy officer associated with the Vikrant project told Deccan Herald.

Since the aircraft carrier needs 26,000 tonnes of steel, the savings may be more than Rs 1,000 crore only on materials. “There are other hidden costs, but more importantly, nobody wants to part ways with such crucial technology,” he said.

At least three major indigenous warship-building projects of the Navy Project-15A (destroyers), Project-17 (frigates) and Project-28 (anti-submarine warfare corvette) have fallen behind schedule, leading to cost escalation. The rise is about 225 per cent for Project-15A, about 260 per cent for Project-17 and about 157 per cent for Project-28.

The main reasons contributing towards cost escalations is delay in supply of warship-building-quality steel by Russia. The high cost of import and delay in delivery forced the defence ministry to opt for self-reliance. “Now all Indian warships will use the DMR 249 steel,” said navy vice-chief R K Dhowan.

Incidentally, the Vikrant programme has recently received another Rs 300 crore from the Defence Ministry, which is keen to complete the project by 2018 so that India can operate two aircraft carriers simultaneously by the turn of the next decade.

Link - Navy makes high-strength steel for warships

 

[BlueDot_in_Space]

Now no applause for DRDO? Navy makes steel?? WTF.

 

[Abingdonboy]

Now no applause for DRDO? Navy makes steel?? WTF.

True- what an absurd title.

 

[Rain]

could not resist appreciating it. well done

 

[veekysingh]

funny indian media. it should be DRDO and SAIL not navy.

could not resist appreciating it. well done

thank u.

 

[HariPrasad]

could not resist appreciating it. well done

Thanks Mate.

I read the news few days back that Essar Steel has accepted the challenge of producing steel as per the requirement of navy to be used in Naval Vessel. Since India have now moved on this path, they should continue R & D in the field and become pioneer in high strength steel.


NEW DELHI: Essar Steel on Thursday said it has become the first Indian producer of steel plates approved by the government for supply to the Indian Navy for building strategic war ships.

"Essar Steel's plate mill became the first primer plate producer in the country to be recognized for indigenous development of steel for building ships for the Indian Navy ... Company has received a prestigious order from Mazagoan Dock (MDL) to supply 13,000 tonnes of heavy plates," the company said in a statement.

The heavy plates will be used for manufacturing state-of-the art ships for defence and this is for the first time that MDL has placed an order for such a large consignment of steel plates from a domestic steel mill.

The order, the company said, follows a "stringent mill audit of Essar Steel's recently commissioned wide-plate mill conducted by teams from the Directorate of Naval Architecture (DNA), Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL) and the Director General of Quality Assurance (DGQA) of the Ministry of Defence."

Set up at a cost of about Rs 2,000 crore, the plate mill has an annual production capacity of 1.5 million tonnes. "Equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and controls -- along with cutting edge technology sourced from Siemens Voest Alpine -- the mill is the only one of its kind in the country capable of producing 5-metre wide plates conforming to global standards," it said.

The plates find applications in diverse segments, including defence, oil and gas, boilers and pressure vessels, heavy duty earth-moving machines, wind towers, mine protective vehicles and construction.

Claiming that its products are ultra-strong and all-weather resistant, the company said until now, these products were largely imported.

It said Essar has also become the country's only steel plant with integrated facilities and items ranging from heavy plates to hot rolling and cold rolling products, with a full distribution business under the brand Essar Hypermarts.

The plate mill has unique finishing facilities that include normalised rolled, furnace-normalised, direct quenched, quenched and tempered (QT) plates and accelerated direct cooling (ADCO).

Essar Steel, a part of the Ruias-led Essar Group has a production capacity of 14 million tonnes per annum (MTPA).

 

[Black Widow]

Navy makes high-strength steel for warships

The Rs 3,261-crore programme to construct the INS Vikrant at Cochin Shipyard was planned with imported steel.

But soon after the steel cutting, the plan ran into rough waters as supply of steel from Russia completely stopped because of commercial disputes.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Sail came to the rescue.

Link - Navy makes high-strength steel for warships

This is evolution, The credit goes to DRDO and SAIL...

But NAVY is equally responsible, The attitude navy showing is recommendable, NAVY learnt that maximum domestic products can make Navy potent..

Yesterday some Cynical Indian member on PDF (Some time I feel they are agent of weapon Dalals/politicians/babus/corrupt generals) were criticizing next generation stealth Frigate project, stating that 9 billion out of 10 billion will go to Israel (as Israel supply Equipment to India)..

Ppl like these have killed IAF , They want to kill all desi products/ambitions. NAVY has slapped on there face by going desi.. Hope IA will continue the same trend..