Make in India focus: DMRL developing aluminium alloy technologies for critical defence applications

Aluminium alloys have emerged as the most preferred material for a variety of space and defence applications due to its high strength-to-weight ratio, high corrosion resistance, high stress corrosion cracking resistance, high weldability, easy fabricability and excellent recyclability. According to a spokesperson of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), India’s defence applications require about eight to ten thousand tons of speciality aluminium alloys per annum and this requirement will increase as more DRDO programmes attain the production status and as the Indian armed forces modernize with time.  

Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL), a research wing of DRDO, has emerged as the centre for taking up development-cum-production orders from various DRDO projects/agencies for manufacturing speciality aluminium alloys at the industrial scale. The centre has been studying a variety of commercial and experimental aluminium alloys for more than three decades and is currently applying the R&D experience for such industrial projects. 

It is to be considered that any given engineering application of a material requires a combination of suitable properties.  In order to achieve these properties, an in-depth analysis of the relationships between the alloy composition, processing, microstructure and properties needs to be carried out. The processing parameters for materials designed for commercial applications are proprietary in nature and require years of dedicated in-house R&D efforts to realize them. DMRL has built up credibility in determining such processing details and applying them in producing materials at the industrial scale.  A variety of aluminium alloys has been developed and produced under the technical guidance of DMRL using the existing infrastructure in Indian industries for critical defence applications that include missile, military bridging system, naval warship, various ammunitions and armaments, futuristic infantry combat vehicle etc.

The key point, according to a DRDO spokesperson, is that these materials were being imported until recently from multiple sources resulting in issues related to quality, time and cost overruns.   India is now being able to produce the same materials domestically to substitute imports, and the process of indigenization is associated with substantial cost savings. 

Notwithstanding the very substantial and high quality metallurgical bauxite reserves in the country (India has the fifth largest bauxite reserves in the world), the value of aluminium alloy products has not been appropriately realized in India. It is the lack of downstream investment which has limited India’s status as a net exporter of aluminium. So, the role played by DMRL to develop and produce the value added downstream products is the need of the hour and in line with the Government’s “Make in India” initiatives. A national committee is currently working on the creation of suitable infrastructure in the country for the production of aluminium alloys for aerospace applications through government funding or through government-private partnership.