Kaveri Engine

natarajan

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The GTRE GTX-35VS Kaveri is a low-bypass-ratio afterburning turbofan being developed by the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), a lab under the DRDO in Bangalore, India. An indigenous Indian design, the Kaveri was intended to power production models of the HAL Tejas fighter.
An indigenous Full-Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) unit, called Kaveri Digital Engine Control Unit (KADECU) has been developed by the Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE), Bangalore. The Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) of Avadi was responsible for the design and development of the Tejas aircraft-mounted accessory gear box (AMAGB) and the power take-off (PTO) shaft.
 

natarajan

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Kaveri jet engine finally poised for first flight

After 20 years in the making, the Kaveri jet engine will finally take to the skies.
In 1989, Dr Mohana Rao, then a junior technician at the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), Bangalore, immersed himself in the ambitious Kaveri programme, which was designing a jet engine for the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft. After pushing the Kaveri through two decades of heartbreak and achievement, Dr Rao is now the Director of GTRE. And his baby, the Kaveri engine, is ready to fly.

This week, a fully built Kaveri engine will be transported to a testing facility outside Moscow called the Gromov Flight Research Institute. Here, a giant IL-76 aircraft will have one of its four engines replaced with a Kaveri. Russian and GTRE experts will then evaluate the Kaveri’s performance while the IL-76 flies.

Before the actual flight tests, Russian experts at Moscow’s Central Institute of Aviation Motors will run ground checks on the Kaveri’s performance, in conditions that simulate altitudes up to 15 kilometers (49,200 feet).

Business Standard visited the Kaveri ground test bed at GTRE, Bangalore, where Russian experts are finishing “pre-acceptance checks” on the Kaveri engine that is headed for their facilities in Russia. The giant turbofan engine, suspended from a ceiling bracket, was being revved up gradually. As it roared to a deafening crescendo, engineers monitored the Kaveri’s power output, watching carefully from behind a bullet-proof glass window.

“The Kaveri’s development is complete”, confirmed Dr Mohana Rao, “In ground testing at GTRE it met the performance parameters laid down in 1998. The next step is to confirm that it performs during flight. A 50-person GTRE team will travel with the engine to Moscow and participate in the flight trials over the next 3-4 months.”

India has no facilities for altitude-testing and flight-testing jet engines. GTRE estimates it will take several hundred crore rupees to create such test facilities in India. Meanwhile, each test campaign in Russia costs Rs 50-60 crores.

For the DRDO (GTRE is a DRDO laboratory) even a successful Kaveri flight will be a bittersweet end to one of India’s most savagely criticised development programmes. A measure of success, on the one hand, in an ambitious technological leapfrog to building a modern jet engine, something only a few countries can do. On the other hand, the Kaveri has failed to provide an engine for the Tejas, even after spending Rs 3000 crores.

“The reason was two-fold”, explains Mohana Rao. “The Kaveri turned out 15% heavier than we planned. From the planned 1100 kg, its final weight has gone up to 1265 kg.”

Meanwhile, the Tejas fighter also turned out heavier than planned, demanding a more powerful engine; the Kaveri’s maximum thrust of 65 Kilo Newtons (KN) is simply not enough. The air force has chosen American GE 404-IN engines, which produce 80 KN at full power, to power the first 20 Tejas fighters. And subsequent Tejas will get about 95 KN of thrust from a new-generation engine: the General Electric GE-414 and the Eurojet EJ200 engines are currently being evaluated.

But GTRE is undeterred, having produced a high-tech turbofan jet engine in a country that has never produced even a motorcycle or car engine.

“We need more thrust without increasing the size of the engine”, says Mohana Rao. “That means getting better technologies from a more experienced foreign partner. We have chosen (French aero-engine major) Snecma. The Defence Ministry has approved the tie-up.”

Business Standard has learned that Rolls Royce, and General Electric declined to partner GTRE, apparently unwilling to part with cutting-edge technology. US major, Pratt & Whitney, was willing only to provide consultancy. With only Russia’s NPO Saturn and Snecma in the game, the MoD has opted for Snecma.

source
 

shiv

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well thats good to hear,atleast we have completed the project,even-though not 90KN,65Kn is not that bad.

kudos to gtre.
 

natarajan

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Built for air force, Kaveri engine chosen by navy

The indigenous Kaveri aircraft engine, soon to make its debut flight, lacks the muscle needed by India’s Tejas light combat aircraft, which the engine was designed to power. In its present form, the Kaveri will never power a modern fighter.

But the engine’s technology — developed by the Defence R&D Organisation, over two decades, at a cost of Rs 3000 crore — will not be wasted. The Indian Navy is snapping up the Kaveri for powering its growing fleet of warships.

Business Standard has learnt that the navy has officially informed the Gas Turbine and Research Establishment (the DRDO laboratory that developed the Kaveri) that naval warships will needs 40 Kaveri Marine Gas Turbines (KMGTs) over the next 15 years.

In an important signal of its support, the navy has agreed to fund 25 per cent of the cost of the KMGT project.

GTRE has developed the marine Kaveri by modifying the aero engine with a shaft, through which power can be delivered to a propeller. The navy has extensively tested these engines at Visakhapatnam and found that the marine Kaveri can deliver 12 Megawatts (16,000 Horsepower) of propulsion power.

Typically warships run on regular diesel engines; gas turbines (such as the Kaveri) are added on to provide “boost power”, needed for manoeuvring in battle. Contemporary gas turbines, such as the General Electric LM2500, provide India’s latest 5000-tonne Shivalik class frigates with 22 Mw of boost. The Kaveri’s more modest 12 Mw is sufficient only for smaller warships.

While the marine Kaveri’s basic performance has been established (even the PM has seen a demonstration in Visakhapatnam), the GTRE Director, Dr Mohana Rao, is not yet satisfied with the basic design.

“So far, the KMGT is just a spin-off from the aero version”, Rao told Business Standard in Bangalore. “I want to give the navy an engine with far greater endurance. An aero engine’s life is just 3000 hours; a marine engine’s life should be 30,000 hours. I must physically test the KMGT for at least 15,000 hours.”

GTRE is going ahead with developing 3-4 test engines and beginning trials within three years. The trials will be conducted in a marine environment, which will include high humidity, and prolonged exposure to salt.

“We plan to begin delivery in about 6 years”, says the GTRE Director, “We hope to keep the cost below Rs 25-30 crores, which is considerably cheaper than buying imported gas turbines.”

Earlier this year, the US State Department had stopped General Electric from fitting its LM-2500 turbines on the INS Shivalik, apparently because GE had not obtained proper permissions from the US government.

Other than the 40 KMGTs, the Indian Navy has also issued a letter, on 6 th April 09, laying out a requirement for 42 Gas Turbine Generators, or GTGs. These are de-rated versions of the marine Kaveri, which will be used for generating electrical power on warships. Each GTG generates 1.2 Megawatts of power.

The Indian Navy, an enthusiastic proponent of indigenisation, proposes to replace the diesel generators fitted on older warships with the Kaveri GTG. If it performs well over a period of time, the new-generation warships will also get electrical power from the Kaveri GTG. Currently, only the Rajput and Delhi class of destroyers use gas turbines for power generation.




source
 

SATISH

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the monocrystalline technology will help increase the thrust of Kaveri....but i think no one is ready to give it to us.
 

rakesh

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If there is full ToT in MRCA in engine?Is that help to us?
 

rakesh

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Kaveri engine is not able to install in LCA.How ADA plan to install in MCA?
 

Martian

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the monocrystalline technology will help increase the thrust of Kaveri....but i think no one is ready to give it to us.
If it isn't for sale and if we think that DRDO will take too long to develop the technology then there's only one way to get this critical technology. The French do it. The Israelis do it. In fact, every nation does it. I suggest more funding for India's industrial espionage operations. Those spies had better get to work!
 

Scientist

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I guess I missed that can u find a link for me?:dfi-1:
Hi Sathish

but i got this info from Wikipedia, i am not sure i think i also read in barath raksha discussion so where

GTRE GTX-35VS Kaveri - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Current status
The Kaveri is still in development, and reports indicate that it will be ready to fly by 2009. Testing and certification for use on the Tejas is expected to take some more time after that. Till then, the first two squadrons of Tejas will be powered by the GE404 engine.

Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister M Natarajan said nearly 90 to 93 per cent of the expected performance had been realised and the government had recently floated an expression of interest to seek partners to move the programme further[7]

DRDO has reportedly been able to develop single crystal blades, which represent a major technological achievement for engine development. Production and integrating this technology into the engine is expected to take some more time.

Kaveri has already undergone 1,700 hours of tests and has been sent twice to Russia to undergo high-altitude tests for which India has no facility. The engine is also being tested to power the next generation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.[8]

In September 2008, it was announced that the Kaveri would not be ready in time for the Tejas, and that an in-production powerplant would have to selected.[9] Development of the Kaveri by the GRTE would continue for other future applications.

It was announced in November 2008 that the Kaveri engine will be installed on LCA by December 2009,[10] apparently for tests only.[citation needed]
 

khatarnak

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KAVERI ENGINE


Kaveri engine has undergone development test of more than 1300 hours at Gas Turbine Research Establishment and has successfully completed phase I and II of high altitude testing at M/s CIAM, Russia. First HAL manufactured engine K6 has run to maximum capacity. The compressor surge margin was also demonstrated in testing of core engine (C4) during June 2004. Conversion of current K9 series engines to interim flight standard is presently under progress at GTRE, so as to integrate it with LCA by December 2006. Government has further sanctioned Rs 2800 crore for Kaveri engine programme for all the three variants of LCA and efforts are being made to realize the configuration of Kaveri Engine for production release by 2007.
this is what the DRDO website is saying even today in year 2009.....

DRDO::Aeronautics

and the actual status is.......... everyone knows man!!!!!!!!!!!
 

khatarnak

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Hi Sathish

but i got this info from Wikipedia, i am not sure i think i also read in barath raksha discussion so where

GTRE GTX-35VS Kaveri - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Current status
The Kaveri is still in development, and reports indicate that it will be ready to fly by 2009. Testing and certification for use on the Tejas is expected to take some more time after that. Till then, the first two squadrons of Tejas will be powered by the GE404 engine.

Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister M Natarajan said nearly 90 to 93 per cent of the expected performance had been realised and the government had recently floated an expression of interest to seek partners to move the programme further[7]

DRDO has reportedly been able to develop single crystal blades, which represent a major technological achievement for engine development. Production and integrating this technology into the engine is expected to take some more time.

Kaveri has already undergone 1,700 hours of tests and has been sent twice to Russia to undergo high-altitude tests for which India has no facility. The engine is also being tested to power the next generation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.[8]

In September 2008, it was announced that the Kaveri would not be ready in time for the Tejas, and that an in-production powerplant would have to selected.[9] Development of the Kaveri by the GRTE would continue for other future applications.

It was announced in November 2008 that the Kaveri engine will be installed on LCA by December 2009,[10] apparently for tests only.[citation needed]
dear sir, wiki is not a trustable sourse coz anybody can edit it.
 

badguy2000

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Kavery jet engine finally poisted for the first flight
Broadsword: On equal terms with the Chinese on the Pangong Lake

Ajai Shukla
GTRE, Bangalore
Business Standard, 7th Sept 09Ajai Shukla
GTRE, Bangalore
Business Standard, 7th Sept 09
After 20 years in the making, the Kaveri jet engine will finally take to the skies.


In 1989, Dr Mohana Rao, then a junior technician at the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), Bangalore, immersed himself in the ambitious Kaveri programme, which was designing a jet engine for the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft. After pushing the Kaveri through two decades of heartbreak and achievement, Dr Rao is now the Director of GTRE. And his baby, the Kaveri engine, is ready to fly.


This week, a fully built Kaveri engine will be transported to a testing facility outside Moscow called the Gromov Flight Research Institute. Here, a giant IL-76 aircraft will have one of its four engines replaced with a Kaveri. Russian and GTRE experts will then evaluate the Kaveri’s performance while the IL-76 flies.


Before the actual flight tests, Russian experts at Moscow’s Central Institute of Aviation Motors will run ground checks on the Kaveri’s performance, in conditions that simulate altitudes up to 15 kilometers (49,200 feet).


Business Standard visited the Kaveri ground test bed at GTRE, Bangalore, where Russian experts are finishing “pre-acceptance checks” on the Kaveri engine that is headed for their facilities in Russia. The giant turbofan engine, suspended from a ceiling bracket, was being revved up gradually. As it roared to a deafening crescendo, engineers monitored the Kaveri’s power output, watching carefully from behind a bullet-proof glass window.


“The Kaveri’s development is complete”, confirmed Dr Mohana Rao, “In ground testing at GTRE it met the performance parameters laid down in 1998. The next step is to confirm that it performs during flight. A 50-person GTRE team will travel with the engine to Moscow and participate in the flight trials over the next 3-4 months.”


India has no facilities for altitude-testing and flight-testing jet engines. GTRE estimates it will take several hundred crore rupees to create such test facilities in India. Meanwhile, each test campaign in Russia costs Rs 50-60 crores.


For the DRDO (GTRE is a DRDO laboratory) even a successful Kaveri flight will be a bittersweet end to one of India’s most savagely criticised development programmes. A measure of success, on the one hand, in an ambitious technological leapfrog to building a modern jet engine, something only a few countries can do. On the other hand, the Kaveri has failed to provide an engine for the Tejas, even after spending Rs 3000 crores.


“The reason was two-fold”, explains Mohana Rao. “The Kaveri turned out 15% heavier than we planned. From the planned 1100 kg, its final weight has gone up to 1265 kg.”

Meanwhile, the Tejas fighter also turned out heavier than planned, demanding a more powerful engine; the Kaveri’s maximum thrust of 65 Kilo Newtons (KN) is simply not enough. The air force has chosen American GE 404-IN engines, which produce 80 KN at full power, to power the first 20 Tejas fighters. And subsequent Tejas will get about 95 KN of thrust from a new-generation engine: the General Electric GE-414 and the Eurojet EJ200 engines are currently being evaluated.


But GTRE is undeterred, having produced a high-tech turbofan jet engine in a country that has never produced even a motorcycle or car engine.


“We need more thrust without increasing the size of the engine”, says Mohana Rao. “That means getting better technologies from a more experienced foreign partner. We have chosen (French aero-engine major) Snecma. The Defence Ministry has approved the tie-up.”


Business Standard has learned that Rolls Royce, and General Electric declined to partner GTRE, apparently unwilling to part with cutting-edge technology. US major, Pratt & Whitney, was willing only to provide consultancy. With only Russia’s NPO Saturn and Snecma in the game, the MoD has opted for Snecma.
well, I find some interesting facts here:

1."India has no facilities for altitude-testing and flight-testing jet engines."...

I feel it very strange why India is so closehanded to invest on necessary R&D facilites while spending billions of importing foreign weapons?


2. how can the head of GTRE declare “The Kaveri’s development is complete”, ,when flight test had even not finished?

Frankly speaking,according to my knowledge, I just feel that project of kavery now has just finished 60% of all works.

Usually , flight tests can not be finished in 3 years... and even after flight test is finished, there are still lots of work to do...

3."the Kaveri’s maximum thrust of 65 Kilo Newtons (KN) is simply not enough.
its final weight has gone up to 1265 kg.”"

so, the Kavery's T/W ratio should be about 6.

In 1960s, UK's MK202 "Spey" was very adanace engine and its T/W ratio was about 5.

In 1970s-1980s, USA worked out F100 and F110. Soivet worked out AL31. the T/W Ratio of the 3 engine were all about 7.0-8.0.

After 1990s, USA worked out F119 and Eurpean worked out EJ2000. the T/W ratio of the both engine is about 9.0-10.0

the T/W ratio of Chinese WS10 is about 8.0 ,so WS10 is about 1980's tech,about 20-30 years behind Yankees and European.

the T/W ratio of Kavery is only about 6.0 ,about one generation behind F110 , AL31 and WS10... it is reasonable that Kavery is the tech of 1970s,about 40 years behind Yankees.
 

khatarnak

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badguy2000
well, I find some interesting facts here:

1."India has no facilities for altitude-testing and flight-testing jet engines."...

I feel it very strange why India is so closehanded to invest on necessary R&D facilites while spending billions of importing foreign weapons?


2. how can the head of GTRE declare “The Kaveri’s development is complete”, ,when flight test had even not finished?

Frankly speaking,according to my knowledge, I just feel that project of kavery now has just finished 60% of all works.

Usually , flight tests can not be finished in 3 years... and even after flight test is finished, there are still lots of work to do...
imo, 'development is complete' - what mr rao wanna say is that the engine is developed. but with low thrust. now it requires the final tests and then further research to increase the thrust. i will call it - EVOLUTION (of the power plant).
 

nitesh

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well, I find some interesting facts here:

1."India has no facilities for altitude-testing and flight-testing jet engines."...

I feel it very strange why India is so closehanded to invest on necessary R&D facilites while spending billions of importing foreign weapons?
That is stuck up with babudom

2. how can the head of GTRE declare “The Kaveri’s development is complete”, ,when flight test had even not finished?

Frankly speaking,according to my knowledge, I just feel that project of kavery now has just finished 60% of all works.

Usually , flight tests can not be finished in 3 years... and even after flight test is finished, there are still lots of work to do...
Well he meant ground testing he clearly mentioned flight tests needs to be done.

How you magically reached to the figure of 60%?
 

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