JNARDDC helps OFAJ overcome tech hurdles

Nagpur based Jawaharlal Nehru Aluminium Research Development and Design Centre (JNARDDC) is known for helping the Indian aluminium industry in solving their problems. The centre is now set to play an important role in country's defence as well.

It will not only be designing a critical component for a shoulder fired ammunition which the country was importing till now but also help in designing special aluminium alloy to make temporary bridges for helping the Indian army move smoothly. The Ordnance Factory Ambajhari (OFAJ) has asked the JNARDDC to design the die cast components for the two products to facilitate their indigenous manufacture.

The Centre has already completed the first step towards designing the die for what is called as 'tail blank', a high strength aluminium component used in 84mm shoulder fired ammunition. It has designed the cast for the component using numerical simulation tool that seems to meet the requirement of OFAJ. The temporary bridge project is still in conceptual stage. Yet, JNARDDC director Anupam Agnihotri said that based on preliminary studies the centre was sure that it would be able to help the factory make the desired bridges using the existing press of 6500 tonnes at OFAJ.

Saurabh Kumar, OFAJ general manager, told TOI that till now the factory had been importing the tail blank from different countries but if the JNARDDC design was found suitable the factory would not just save a lot of foreign exchange but also move towards self-reliance in the field. "Since we have been importing this component, we didn't have a fixed manufacturing schedule for the ammunition. JNARDDC seems to have bailed us out from dependence on other countries. It will also make our production programme more stable and economically more viable," he said.

OFAJ additional general manager Vinod Munghate said once the JNARDDC finished designing the aluminium alloy based component as per the desired parameters the factory would start manufacturing the component indigenously. "Initial simulation studies have shown that the design suits our requirement. We basically need JNARDDC's help in designing the die and extrusions. It is a big step towards self-reliance," he said.