Scope and Objectives

There has been a long standing need for a firing impulse generator capable of producing pressures in the range of thousands of atmospheres. This will enable Indian ordnance factories to quickly test barrel designs locally for fatigue, and avoid taking tons of test equipment to distant and heavily booked proving grounds at Balasore/Pokhran. Further, a full life-cycle test of such barrels is currently cost-prohibitive due to need of ammunition worth crores of rupees. Hence, such tests are rarely conducted. This device will eliminate these costs and enable factories to launch their fully-tested made-in-India guns internationally. The project is two-staged. In the first stage the aim is to fabricate a scaled down model, to prove out proof-of-concept, calculations, and also identify potential failure points of the concept. In the second stage we will develop the actual working prototype. Thus, the objective of the project is: Develop a Pressure Impulse Generator for Producing Operating Pressures in Large Caliber Gun Barrels.

Deliverables

Ideation and development of integrated model Detailed design for a 100 MPa system Protoyping for a 100 MPa system Validation of 100 MPa prototype Detailed design for a max. pressure system Prototyping of a full scale model Validation of prototype generating full scale pressure Installation and operationalization

Videos

Scientific Output

Project on time. All deliverables have been met as per schedule. The 1st prototype (100 MPa) design has been fabricated and tested rigorously. It is working as per expectations (based on simulations). Currently, we have completed the final design, and are about to kick off its fabrication.

Results and outcome till date

Project on time. All deliverables have been met as per schedule. The 1st prototype (100 MPa) design has been fabricated and tested rigorously. It is working as per expectations (based on simulations). Currently, we have completed the final design, and are about to kick off its fabrication.

Societal benefit and impact anticipated

Ordnance factories will save very significant amount of resources for fatigue testing of barrels. Currently, they have not tested any large caliber gun barrels for fatigue. This device will make it possible and will save them over Rs. 100 crores per design.

Next steps

Fabrication of large pressure design.

Publications and reports

Two M. Tech. Theses

Patents

Will file for patents post kicking of fabrication of final prototype. Expect to file patents for 15+ features in the design of pressure pulse generator, as well as the gas gun.

Scholars and Project Staff

LIST of CURRENT PROJECT STAFF
Girijesh Mathur
Awaneesh Kumar
Ritesh Bhattacharya
Sharad Kumar
Manmohan Singh
Ramashankar Yadav

LIST OF CURRENT STUDENTS/SCHOLARS
Madhav Londhe Shubham

Challenges faced

Availability of very high strength material from MIDHANI. This can cause schedule delays. We are exploring ways to get around this hurdle.

Other information

None.