New Delhi, February 5, 2006
Though India’s maiden bid to develop a fighter engine has been caught in various hurdles, American experts have offered some encouragement, holding out a promise that Kaveri can be developed into a contemporary world class engine.
“We are ready to join in partnership with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to make Kaveri work,” General William J Begert of the world’s leading aircraft engine manufacturers, Pratt and Whitney, said.
DRDO scientists had kept the development of the Kaveri engine under wraps, exuding confidence that India had developed the technological edge to develop its own aircraft engine, so far confined to handful of developed countries.
American engine manufacturers had to pull out and fly in retired gas turbine engines as they, too, were intially foxed by the Indian Kaveri engine. Now they, too, believe that Kaveri is “truly a world class engine”.
But, like the DRDO officials, they refuse to say where the Indian engineers had got stuck, merely commenting that the DRDO gas turbine technology is “truly Indian and a very responsive effort”.
India’s top defence scientist M Natarajan says that though DRDO had agreed to go in for international collaboration to make Kaveri airborne,” the partners will have to work to our terms”.
A flight international article reads :
The production Kaveri, with a reheat thrust of 20,200 lbs. (90kN), will be more powerful than the 17,000 lbs. Snecma M88-2 now powering the twin-engined Rafale. It matches the output of the uprated M88-3. GTRE says a version of the Kaveri will have a turbine entry temperature of 1 ,850 deg C and single-crystal turbine blades being developed by GTRE with the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory.
The new variant, which India says will be at the technology level of the M88-3, will have a fan pressure ratio of 4:1 and an overall pressure ratio of 27:1. A new combustor will be shorter and lighter than the present unit.
The increased,dry thrust should allow the aircraft (LCA Tejas) to [u]super cruise[/u] (cruise supersonically without the use of reheat).
Also under development is a thrust-vectoring nozzle, to enhance its agility, as well as a digital engine control system. The axisymmetric TV nozzle is planned to be flight tested on a later prototype. The nozzle could possibly permit the elimination of the vertical stabiliser and decrease the radar cross section.
Plans are already under way for derivatives of the Kaveri; a non-afterburning version for an advanced jet trainer, a high bypass-ratio turbo fan based on the Kaveri core, as well as variants for other applications.
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February 6, 2006 at 5:01 am