A one day National Seminar on Development of Special Alloys and Composites of Aluminum for New India took place in Mumbai on 16th of March, 2018. The seminar was organized by Aluminium Association of India (AAI), an apex body for the Indian aluminium sector, in association with the primary producers of Aluminium and leading ancillary and Downstream industries with a view to encourage an increasing use of Aluminium metal in various application sectors.
Dr A.K. Mukhopadhyay, a leading Scientist and Associate Director, Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), Hyderabad spoke about the successful role of DMRL as a centre for taking up development-cum-industrial scale production orders for a variety of specialty aluminium alloys for critical defence applications. These applications include missile (with a special mention of BrahMos missile), military bridging system, naval warship, various ammunitions and armaments, futuristic infantry combat vehicle etc. Dr Mukhopadhyay pointed out that these materials could be produced in India because of the important infrastructures established during the past decade. Among them, Hindalco Almex Aerospace Limited (HAAL), Aurangabad, responsible for melting and casting of aerospace grade aluminium alloy billets and slabs, has been playing a key role in the indigenous production of specialty aluminium alloys.
Dr.Mukhopadhyay added that in addition to other large scale industries from where DRDO receives help i.e. NALCO (primary aluminium), BALCO (slabs, sheets & plates), Ordnance Factory Ambajhari, Nagpur (billets & extrusions), Hindalco, Hirakud (slabs & sheets), a number of small to medium scale industries such as Siddhi Engineers, Ahmedabad (seamless tubes), Century Extrusions Limited, Kharagpur (extrusions & forging stocks), CHW Forge, Greater Noida (rolled rings), Bhoruka Aluminium Extrusions, Mysore (profiles), Steel & Industrial Forgings Limited, Thrissur (forgings) have been playing crucial roles in realizing various semi-products for critical defence applications. The resultant materials are import substitutes and the process of indigenization is always associated with considerable cost savings.
Dr.Mukhopadhyay emphasized that the need of the hour is to create the essential infrastructure to produce sheets and plates, near net shaped forgings etc. for producing aluminium alloy products for indigenously produced fighter aircrafts and regional transport aircrafts. These infrastructures should be created on urgent basis either by government funding or through public-private partnership.
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