Indian Naval Discussion

[geeth]

With due respect to all, I would say that there seems to be too much of over-reaction. First of all, there is no accurate info about the mishap. If the mishap occured in July, as mentioned in SNaik's post, and the ship continued with its trials, then it is not a critical issue. We can rule out a boiler explosion.

If it is insulation breakdown, then it could be the fire bricks in the furnace. Even here, it would not have failed at lower steam output..as the power is raised, more steam is drawn and hence more fuel is pumped. This raises the furnace temperature substantially. Due to the increased temp, thermal expansion occurs and here is the problem. If the bonding of the fire bricks is not proper, then it would lead to cracks and furnace failure. Or if the bonding material is improper such that there is differential expansion, then also the firewall cracks. Once the firewall cracks, insulation breaks down and may lead to the melting of furnace casing and escape of hot flue gas to the boiler room. So you have to shut down that particular boiler. Furnace cracks can also occur due to excessive vibrations.

This furnace breakdown may have occured during high speed trials of the engine whereby maximum power is drawn and basically you are buggering up the boiler and steam turbine for few hours. More often than not, there are failures and it is a routine matter, particularly after repairs / refurbishment. Depending upon the situation, you decide to correct the mistake or place a limit on max power /speed calibrations and the crew are instructed to operate the vessel within the set parameters. It is like expanding the flight envelop of LCA. - that is exactly what you do with ships also, though less rigorous.

Replacing the firebricks is basically masonry work, and some amount of repairs happens after every few months of sailing - it is a continuous process and the fire bricks do get damaged often during operations.

[Eric Leiderman]

geeth I would like to correct you on the core furnace temperature, as in all combustion the air fuel ratio for complete combustion is a given, if a little higher air/fuel ratio is attained the efficiency falls however the cooling increases. the core furnace temp is kept near constant with a modulation in air flow. however as you so rightly pointed out as the load/speed is increased the throughput of the steam is upped this power offtake strains the boiler as the gradient of comparitively cooler water to superheated steam increases. but that will not have an effect on the furnace.
Other than the fire bricks, if the burner is improperly located and the flame tip touches the masonery then that could cause localised breakdown, also a dripping burner will cause the floor of the masonery to catch fire which is not the way it was designed to work and it will breakdown.

[Singha]

what kind of boilers does the Varyag use. Cheen must be shitting bricks right now if they purchased it off the sole supplier in the ex-USSR

the explanations make me think hull cutting wont be needed and some in-place repairs can be made over 4-6 months and perhaps the max speed of ship reduced by a few knots to preserve a better safety margin.

hull cutting would mean a 3 yrs delay for sure.

--
a web search indicates Ukraine has been helping on the power plant:

The source also pointed out: "Ukrainian experts has visited Harbin Boiler Works of China. In your type of gas turbine has been known DN80 cooperation projects (including to provide China with the production of this type of gas turbine technology) after the Ukraine in the field of naval systems The most massive of a cooperation program is to assist the production of military power in Harbin Boiler Works boilers and power plant. "However, when asked whether these new boilers will be installed on the aircraft carrier built by China's imminent, he just smiled .

[vina]

what kind of boilers does the Varyag use. Cheen must be shitting bricks right now if they purchased it off the sole supplier in the ex-USSR

Cheen couldn't give a crap about Asbestos or whatever. If asked, they would wrap a couple layers MORE asbestos than needed on it.

I don't think they care about niceties like their enlisted staff dying of lung cancer from that asbestos and they really wouldn't have the kind of problems the Adm Gorsh KrapKoff seems to have.

That said, I wonder WTF, didn't the Indian Navy insist on throwing out that heavy bulky and outdated steam machinery and order it to be replaced by Gas Turbines and Diesels (CODAG) instead, especially given that that Gorsh KrapKoff was mothballed in the first place due to a boiler room explosion, and this is a STOBAR carrier and is not going to use cats!

[tsarkar]

To sum it up in one sentence,the task of modifying the cruiser-carrier into a regular flat top was grossly underestimated by both the Russians and our own babus/IN's technical team.

As per the official CAG report http://cdasecbad.ap.nic.in/sankalan/COM ... 0India.pdf Page 16

Two IN delegations that visited the foreign country in August 1995 and January 1998 commented on the deteriorating material state of the ship and stated that it was apparent that little or no maintenance efforts had been undertaken. A third delegation (October 1999) also observed that the material condition of the ship `Q' had further deteriorated and that the process of deterioration was likely to accelerate with the passage of time. The delegation indicated that the state of machinery and systems had worsened to such an extent that the refit could hardly be called `repair'.

IN was technically very clear. It never wanted Gorshkov. Can it help if the powers-that-be ignore professional advise?

@Geeth & Eric

With marine gas turbines and diesels having exhibited reliability & enhanced performance for ships similar to the size of IAC/Gorshkov, getting a steam turbine powered ship was never the wisest of decisions.

Only nuclear powered ships use steam turbines, but I believe that too would move to electric propulsion like the french amphibious ship & cruise liners, that would also save gearbox + shafting weight + space. British aircraft carriers will use electric propulsion.

[Austin]

Gorshkov deal was not a ideal deal for Indian Navy and they were not happy about what made it look good was it was linked to Akula SSN lease and help Russian gave in Indian Nuclear Submarine program.

Without the Gorkshov deal these would not have happened specially the lease of SSN , So it was take it or leave it deal.

One of the reason the Political Class persisted with it.

Also IN Admiral Suresh Mehta was on record stating for the money we paid we couldn't have got a better deal than this

[samverma]

A little of topic, but may have relevance - GURUS to please correct / educate me/us on this :

We have been doing a lot of research/testing on Thorium based reactors as the next possible power generator source for our country...now i understand that it is still in testing / pilot run state (if i read correctly in the media / BR articles)..is there no potential way to use this to power an Aircraft carrier in the future (A/C-2 or 3 if it happens)? Please note my knowledge is "0" on nuclear related matters

[nakul]

They haven't got it to work on land so far. Only when it is shown to be succesful on land, can we push it to the sea. It is still some years away.

[samverma]

Thanks..appreciate the prompt reply.

[Singha]

I think marine diesel is out of question when a ship this large needs to move at 30knots task force. some of the cheen ships have been roundly criticised for a CODAD plant unable to keep up with their capital ships which are CODAG...so same rules would apply here. diesels are likely economical and good for merchant ships sailing below 20knots sustained....I heard one german cargo hauler had even reduced speed to 12 knots fleetwide to save fuel, though it makes the trips longer.

gas turbine could be done and is being done for IAC-1 and many other large warships like the french/uk carriers with 4xLM2500 family. Zorya of Ukraine generally supplies the gas turbines for soviet block. but maybe that meant much more extensive surgery in the ship than just replacing the old boiler systems with 1:1 replacements.

[Singha]

problem could be zorya has done gas turbine power plants for upto the Slava class, but not anything bigger yet, because Rus capital ship construction has been nonexistent for 15-20 yrs now.
http://eng.zmturbines.com/?rubs=product ... 1245353811

in contrast the LM2500 family is going great guns with fremm, kdx3, IAC1 and a host of other sales
http://www.geaviation.com/engines/marin ... lusg4.html

[SNaik]

The comments have cooled down. Vik is still capable of making up to 22 knots, aircraft tests are continued including night flights. On 25th she is expected back at Sevmash where 3 boilers will be repaired, not replaced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nfbb40B ... r_embedded

[vina]

The comments have cooled down. Vik is still capable of making up to 22 knots, aircraft tests are continued including night flights. On 25th she is expected back at Sevmash where 3 boilers will be repaired, not replaced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nfbb40B ... r_embedded

Thanks SNaik, great video .

That said, this entire Gorshkov/Vik Ad thing fills me with trepidition. This is one jinxed ship. The boilers blew up earlier and it spent close to 20 years as a rusting hulk. And now, I think in IN service it is going to be a maintenance nightmare being a one off thing with unique systems and dodgy spares and support from all over the Soviet Union with it's atrophied industrial base. If getting spares for stuff like aircraft was a nightmare earlier, I shudder to think about getting support and service for a one off thing such as this!

We should have NEVER gone for this, but rather put all out efforts into getting the IAC into the water at the earliest. Anyways, this ship itself is a compromise, with serious short comings as a carrier.

I think the Chinese got the better bargain in this. Instead , if WE had got the Varyag's hull, with our far high carrier expertise and with the help available from US and others, we could have got a fully capable carrier with the systems that have assured support and proven quality and tailored to our requirements on that. That would have been FAR better (even if we had gone for Mig29K as the main fighter). For eg, we could have installed a far more modern CODAG (LM2500 on a Ex Soviet hull , happens only in India! ) , western radars and Hawkeyes 2000s operating out of a Ex Soviet Hull (again only in India).. all that was possible, and I say, we could have done all this in less time than the Gorsh Krapoff fiasco

Now the Chinese have got their hands on that and are building carrier expertise, while our money is going to build Russian learning curve on building capital ships!

[Austin]

It seems even if we had bought the Varyag in early 90's there would have been no place to dock the ships in any port not certainly Mumbai ..........Karwar is certainly a late comer in the game.

[geeth]

the core furnace temp is kept near constant with a modulation in air flow.

That may not be possible in practice for higher speeds, because there is a wide range between the amount of fuel pumped say for cruising speed and 'full steam ahead'. In a comparatively small ship like the leander class or godavari class (which uses the same boiler), the amount of diesel pumped about 2 tons/boiler whereas for top speed it is in double digits. The radiation from the flame itself is much higher and the flames come closer to the furnace walls the flue gas temp are also higher.

An additional problem is leakage from boiler tubes. Marine boilers are designed to be operated even if some of the boiler tubes burst/leak. The leaking steam inside the furnace instantly breaks into hydrogen and oxygen and the burning of hydrogen further increases the temp (I don't know if any such thing happened here). If the leak is too much hydrogen accumulation may even lead to explosion.

Steam machinery is great for sustained operations - it can be run for weeks and even months without any problem. Inly thing is you have to be extra careful while starting and stopping. If the correct procedures are not followed or if you do things in a hurry it becomes a lump of metal. The tolerance limits are so low and the machinery takes a long time to cool/warm up.

[Austin]

Updated from itar-tass on Vicky

Indian Navy expect to get an aircraft carrier "Vikramaditya" in April 2013

The naval forces of India expect to get an aircraft carrier "Vikramaditya" (a former Russian aircraft carrier "Admiral Gorshkov") in April 2013. This was announced today the official representative of the Indian Navy a pm Satish.

"We hope to have an aircraft carrier in April," - quotes him news agency IANS.

The most difficult components of the test program the aircraft carrier "Vikramaditya" succeed

Routine command aircraft carrier "Vikramaditya", consisting of specialists from Sevmash generally pleased with the results the test ship at sea, despite the shortcomings in its power plant. This was announced today by ITAR-TASS responsible deliverer carrier Igor Leonov.

"Last Friday was 100 days from the moment an aircraft carrier at sea trials. Still no ship created or upgraded by Russia's largest shipbuilding company, so long did not go to trial in the sea," - said Leonov.

He stressed that "despite technical defects in the boiler room of the ship power installation, commissioning team of Sevmash positive about the outcome of the tests."

"We believe - said Leone - that the most difficult components of the test program are successful ship." "The main purpose of the aircraft carrier, - he said, - provision of deployment and use of carrier-based aircraft. Recognized that the most tricky part of the test - this test aircraft and hardware ship. As part of these tests the aircraft carrier" Vikramaditya "was made about 100 successful flights by Russian pilots. All flights have been highly appreciated and our Navy, and Indian experts. "

Told deliverer ship, "simultaneously with working all the equipment and systems to ensure safety / performance brake machines and restraints / were optimized transport and refueling aircraft, flight dispatch support in various flight conditions, at different times, with different flight loads." "In fact, during these tests, we studied the organization vibrant communities carriers" - said its executive deliverer.

"The second objective of the tests - he said - is working out real operation of dozens of modern electronic weapons systems." "This problem has also been successfully implemented in full" - summed Leonov.

Against this background, he said, "identified in the tests and independent shipbuilders shortcomings in a number of boilers - this is annoying, but a technical problem, the elimination of which is not complicated or technical, or in terms of organization."

[Singha]

buying US catapults , hawkeyes has become politically possible only in the last 2-3 yrs. it was never on the cards a decade ago.
so even if we had the varyag towed to india (with no naval dock capable of housing it), it would still have ended up as a ski jump carrier. cheen is doing the refurbishing inhouse with ukrainian tot, we did that in russia...not a huge diff there. more of the electronic fit on varyag might be cheen though.

it would be a lesser hassle to just have have the US build us a pair of 65,000t carriers utilizing gas turbines and their newport shipyard that builds CVN, ofcourse each would have cost not less than $10 b.

[SaiK]

^one has to realize the amount of money it started out as, and again needed more money to fix them, and again now I think they would have spent all the money on gorshkov upgrade and for the fixes, they will come back and heckle us. plain and simple, Russian Extortion Model of doing business (REM).

Now, no one thinks on money being spent on indic technology enablers, like engine area development etc, where it needs massive investments. And we can see hoards of back stabbers write bad articles about indic establishments and our own country men.

I doubt US will agree to build any turbine powered A/C for us, as it amounts to strategic initiatives, and wider areas of agreements they want us to sign.. so, it is a heckle of different kind.

If we can sort out our own a/c soon, and patiently wait for gorshkov to turn into vikramaditya, then we could come out better. Our own weakness (strategic, defence, and brains) I would say, are EXPOSED in these deals.

[Philip]

Guys,Pl remember the chronology of the Gorky acquisition.The IN was desperate to keep its carrier skills intact and there was no other carrier available but for the vintage Clemenceau with her old Super Etendards.No one was willing to build a new carrier for us or help us build one then.A former CNS when I asked him,told me that the IN rejected the Varyag because her hull was in very poor shape ,plus it was too large for our then existing infrastructure to handle.We dithered for years before finally deciding to acquire it.If the IN was against it it should've stood firm.The Gorky looked a suitable solution but the immensity of the task of modification of it was grossly underestimated as well as the time.

We now have to live with the decision and hopefully her teething problems will be satisfactorily resolved.That the carrier despite her problems is still conducting trials is a moot point.They are not insurmountable and we just have to be patient,as we were when acquiring the Chakra.If penalties are to be levied,I'm sure they will.

Some key points in carrier ops are:

1.What are the no. of aircraft and helos ,etc., to be operated from it?

2.This decision determines the launching system.Cats,STOVL,STOBAR.

3.If cats,then the powerplant has to be sufficient for the cats power needs too.Adds greatly to cost.

4.The size follows the above.

In determining the shape and scope of IAC-2,these need to be given very serious thought as carriers are expected to last for at least 3-4 decades of service and should be flexible enouigh to operate new aircraft when they replace old ones.

[karan_mc]

Shulyakovsky says three of the carrier’s eight boilers failed, but the ship still managed to stay underway and reached 23 knots, below its design speed of 29 knots.

So it is only 3 and not 7 told by other news report

Boiler failures were a legacy of the original vessel’s design, he said, with propulsion snags being a persistent feature of the four Project 1143 carriers built in the Soviet Union in the 1970′s. The carriers boilers lasted just 20 percent of the design life stated by their makers, he said.

in 1994 it had a boiler room explosion , so boiler problem is a design issue and even after fix Indian navy might have to live with for next two decades

The replacement boilers installed as part of the vessel’s $2.3 billion refit were guaranteed for just ten months, which expired before the ship took to sea, he said.

So boilers are out of warranty now so who will pay the bill ?? India again

Engineers are focusing on the boilers’ heat insulation as the core of the problem. Repairs could take from four months to a year depending on the damage to the insulation, he said.

So Indian navy hoping for April 2013 handover is totally depends on our prayers that damage is not high .

The worst case would be damage to the pipes carrying steam from the boilers, Shulyakovsky said. The pipes are made from a special steel which is no longer made in Russia. The steel used in Vikramaditya’s pipes was made in Ukraine.

So more $$$$

A defense industry official quoted by Kommersant newspaper on Monday, who prepared the Vikramaditya for sea trials, said the reason for the boilers’ failure was that India refused to use asbestos to protect the boilers from heat, fearing that the material was dangerous for the crew. Instead, it used firebrick, which had poorer insulating properties.

It could not survive a single high speed test ?? i think firebrick used by them was of poor design and they were hoping nothing breaks down before it is handed over to India navy

Yard Boss Blames Boilers for India Carrier Trials Snags

[member_22539]

^^Its amazing how "some" people don't extend the same understanding, slack and excuses for domestic projects. Truly, more patriotic than the King.

[SaiK]

^^That is because, of the media. "Our People" at the most can only understand foreign systems as workable, and Indian systems are risky in the first place. Unless, we resolve that image, we are not going to go any step further in domestic projects. Even the best systems we have developed are under reported, under used, and under praised.

[Kersi D]

I SMELL A RAT

There seems to be a conspiracy to ensure that IN does not get the AC.

Or Russians are playing dirty so that IN finally says it does not want the AC and it goes to Russian Navy, paid by us.

[Kersi D]

If this had happened to a homegrown IAC, the likes of Manoj Joshi & Rajat Pandit will be having a field day, projecting their inferiority complexes to other Indians.

At least 1 take-away from this (on the non-Naval side): dont put all our eggs in the FGFA basket. Pump in money into the AMCA and have a solid Plan B ready. That project is a lot more strategic than the Vic and we can expect full-blown arm twisting and India paying for Russia's failures

I hope so

We all hope so.

[Kersi D]

An additional problem is leakage from boiler tubes. Marine boilers are designed to be operated even if some of the boiler tubes burst/leak.

Doubtful

The leaking steam inside the furnace instantly breaks into hydrogen and oxygen and the burning of hydrogen further increases the temp (I don't know if any such thing happened here). If the leak is too much hydrogen accumulation may even lead to explosion.

Not Possible, Sirjee

Steam machinery is great for sustained operations - it can be run for weeks and even months without any problem. Inly thing is you have to be extra careful while starting and stopping. If the correct procedures are not followed or if you do things in a hurry it becomes a lump of metal. The tolerance limits are so low and the machinery takes a long time to cool/warm up.

Steam propulsion with fuel fired boilers occupy a lot more space. Besides it takes a long time to start. From a cold start Vik would take several hours (12 to 16) to go on her own.

Gas turbines would take up smallest space but they are fuel guzzlers.

That is why many navies opt for CODOG or CODAG, diesels for cruising and gas turbine for high speed.


K

[John]

problem could be zorya has done gas turbine power plants for upto the Slava class, but not anything bigger yet, because Rus capital ship construction has been nonexistent for 15-20 yrs now.
http://eng.zmturbines.com/?rubs=product ... 1245353811

in contrast the LM2500 family is going great guns with fremm, kdx3, IAC1 and a host of other sales
http://www.geaviation.com/engines/marin ... lusg4.html

It is possible but it is way too late to make significant propulsion change on power plants for Gorshkov without having to redesign this ship. Have to keep in mind this was major issues for Soviets back when it was operational.

[Singha]

^ John I was never suggesting a change now. its cast in stone now...no going back for sure. maybe it will enjoy a shorter than usual 15 yr term of service in IN with a top speed reduced to 23 knots now.

the only game in town that could deliver the IAC2 near about time , budget, our reqs is DCN with the PA2 design
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PA2.svg
Italians would clearly be in over their heads trying a ship twice the size of the cavour.
Angrez are capable of doing it, but if the french also can do, why use the angrez?
america could do it, but their yard is solely focussed on their CVN designs
russia - well we have been there before and duly got our beating.

ofcourse we'd need to suck up to americans too for the catapult system the PA2 design needs to hurl Rafale-M and hawkeye. maybe use the USN CTOL version of JSF instead of rafale since it looks like cheen would be having the Jsfski in naval service by then, with a couple more carriers cloned off the varyag design.

I would say we need to start IAC2 and IAC3 sister ships (exact same design) nearly in parallel by building infra for that in Kochi. these ships take so long to build its not funny getting 1 carrier every decade. we need to introduce two new carriers at the end pipeline spaced say 18-24 months apart.
and we need to start IAC4 and IAC5 around 5 yrs after starting this pair because AG will not last long for sure and our needs will expand nearing mid century.

[SNaik]

Trikand has started mooring trials to be completed by January 2013. Sea trials will begin around February - March depending on when the Baltic Sea clears of ice.

[kit]

Any one knows about current progress of the IAC Vikrant ? If IN knew how 'bad' gorky was they wouldn't put too much emphasis on it as a strategic platform.

[kit]

I SMELL A RAT

There seems to be a conspiracy to ensure that IN does not get the AC.

Or Russians are playing dirty so that IN finally says it does not want the AC and it goes to Russian Navy, paid by us.

That is not such a bad idea., let them refund the money., and we buy one of Her majesty s new carriers.( we might have some money left as well ?)

[Vashishtha]

The shipyard is supposed to pay for the boiler failures right? Its their problem!!!
I'd be pissed if they ask for more money from us to rectify their mistakes...

[geeth]

Not Possible, Sirjee

It was concluded, that the failure was due to the bad design of tubes and tube plate, where in the tube recess in tube plate was observed oval and there was no serrations in the tube plate. Due to this aspect over a period of time steam leaked out and impinged on hot surface resulting in decomposition into the basic elements of O & H and thus “Hydrogen Fire” took place. Besides this it was aggravated by the faulty design of oil flow to the burner, which did not cut out even on low water level in boiler. This resulted in a continuous chain process, till the tubes are burnt out or the steam is exhausted.

http://imare.in/Dec09Branch/Visakhapatnam.html

Oxide scaling inside or outside may cause tube failure and worst case hydrogen fire when iron burns in steam at above 700*C in exothermic reaction, and destroys all boiler, economizer and air heater.

http://marineboilers.wordpress.com/

[SaiK]

Once Arihant goes successful, we could straight away use as many 80MW n-power to A/Cs., depending on power needs, we could either double up or build one specifically for IACs. Better solution for power packs.

But, the news is all about steam boilers onlee.. and now that ain't any super duper advanced tech.. or is it? /ddm?

[SNaik]

Info from the Captain of Vikramaditya. Since 8 June she has logged over 11 thousand miles at average speed of 14-16 knots, over a hundred take-offs and landings of MiG-29s.

[SaiK]

So, there goes that.. then. They have design issues to go and sustain at 30 knots. all things heat up! but, it may be a bad speculation based on ddm.

[aniket]

Is the vikramaditya being run by an Indian crew, or by the Russians ?

[member_23370]

Who is the captain of the ship? It is still being operated by RuN right? Gorky was always meant to be a stop gap for the next 20 years or so. Which gives IN ample time to get 2-3 IAC-II ships in service if they are not stupid enough to order one at a time.

[kit]

Singha., MOD still hasn't finalized the shipyard to build IAC 2 it is still in drawing board ., forget about parallel lines for IAC 3 & 2 ., even kochi shipyard can't make one that size

[John]

Ships will travel in their cruising speed but do need able to do bursts of 25 knots+ when situation dictates' itself. They great advantage of nuclear power is that ship like Nimitz can literally cruise close to their top speed (granted rest of fleet needs to be nuclear as well to keep pace).

[SNaik]

Is the vikramaditya being run by an Indian crew, or by the Russians ?

Russians. Captain is Igor Ryabko, former First Officer of Kuznecov.