Kaveri & Aero-Engine: News & Discussion

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ramana
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ramana »

Rakesh, SAFRAN is in due to Rafale offsets. About a $B worth. The story was they would bring the M88 core and magic sauce to make new Kaveri.

Now the watch some 145 tests and come up with a report and say it's good to fly in an aircraft.
And this is $1B worth?
All these tests were in India.
So what's going on?
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Katare »

Ramana,
I don’t think this is related to offsets. The audit is probably done on test data to ensure the testing data package is not missing anything. The audit itself would not cost more than a few million euros. It’s just added safety layer, nothing more.
ramana
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ramana »

Ok. Thanks for calming me.

BTW the early consultants for Kaveri were SNECMA for France.
Could be these guys mentors.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Indranil »

So, Rustom’s Diesel engines are a modified auto engine churning out 185 HP. Now, some refinements for weight optimization and high altitude performance.

Meanwhile Rustom II is now close to 3 tons in weight. New LGs being designed at CVRDE.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Rakesh »

Ramana-ji, couple of points to note;

1) The Kaveri program was comatose, until the Rafale contract signed in Sept 2016. See below (written by Anantha Krishnan)...

DRDO to abandon indigenous fighter jet engine Kaveri project
https://tarmak007.blogspot.com/2014/11/ ... andon.html
18 Nov 2014 and if you click on the link above, the author updated the article (in Jan 2015) via a link at the bottom of the page.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has decided to wind up the Kaveri engine (GTX-35VS) programme, signaling an end to a desi dream of equipping its own fighter jet with a home-grown power plant. Sources in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed to OneIndia on Tuesday that the DRDO has already moved a file recently seeking the closure of the ambitious engine development project undertaken by Bengaluru-based Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE).
2) By mid 2016, news reports started coming in that France offered to revive the Kaveri program. See below...

France offers help to resurrect Kaveri engine for Tejas
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/F ... 475955.ece
France has offered to help India revive the unsuccessful Kaveri engine project for the indigenous Tejas aircraft and a host of other high-end collaborations. This is a part of the offsets in the multi-billion Euro Rafale fighter plane deal, which is now in the final stages.
An upgraded Kaveri engine with 90 kN thrust compared to the existing 72 kN can be developed with French cooperation, which can eventually be used for Tejas, which currently uses an American engine.
This was a brilliant move by the French, because they knew whatever ailed the Kaveri was fixable. We bit the bullet and in Sept 2016, the Rafale deal was signed in New Delhi, between India and France.

Prasannasimha-ji did a wonderful job by posting that snippet on the Kaveri program. From 2014 to the end of 2016, there was little or no movement of any significance on the Kaveri program. In Sept 2016, the Rafale deal was signed and France promised to have the Kaveri fly by Aero India 2019. By the end of 2017, five prototypes were tested for a total of 145 hours. Safran conducted a technical audit and states that the engine has attained sufficient level of maturity.

Now GTRE could have done this themselves and saved US $1 billion in the bargain. But remember, DRDO wanted to shut down the program in 2014. Four years later, the program has done a complete u-turn. We always knew Safran would make the Kaveri work, whether they actually wanted to do it was the real proof in the pudding. And if that news snippet is correct, Safran has delivered albeit half way. The next deliverable from Safran is get the Kaveri to fly and the one after that is to get the Kaveri certified.

What exactly Safran did, we will likely never know unless we have chaiwallahs in GTRE :) Audit can be anything and Katare has provided clarity on that. Now this by Prasannasimha-ji is very interesting. Safran was supposed to put the M88 core in and make the Kaveri work. But that has not happened. The Kabini core itself has been modified by Safran.
prasannasimha wrote:^ I think the Kaveri Safran has audited did not have an M88 core. It is still the original Kabini core with some modifications.
Now I will make an educated guess of my own. I believe Safran has "modified" the core to meet - at minimum - the original design specifications, which I am assuming is around 90 kN. I believe - in this very dhaaga - we came to conclusion that the M88 core cannot be installed in the Kaveri engine. Please correct me if I am wrong. But regardless, the above is even better news.

Now you make a valid point...is this help from Safran really worth US $1 billion? Please remember (I know, I sound like a broken record player)...the program was officially de-linked from the Tejas. If Safran can make the Kaveri fly and certified - via audit, via modifications or whatever - that is IMHO a very sound investment. As per wiki chacha, we have spent more than US $640 million on the program, add another US $1 billion (Kaveri offset) and a few hundred million more and India will have spent ~ US $2 billion to date on this program. Sir - as long as the engine works - that is peanuts. The payoffs for India are huge.

Now Safran has provided its input and its report. Now the first step is get the Kaveri to fly. The next step (a long way to go for this) is certification. My lungi is ready for Aero India 2019. I will either lungi shiver or lungi dance, depending on the news :)
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Khalsa »

Since 2016, I did not visit this thread but checked it out after reading some good news elsewhere on the InterWebs
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Pratyush »

Make the damned thing fly. Enough of this striptease.

Don't care if it fails. Just make sure that the ejection seat works.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by chetak »

ramana wrote:
Bart S wrote:Is this something that we necessarily need Gromov's help with? Would a used Boeing 747 serve the purpose? Or is it really the Gromov/TSAGI expertise that we need?

The flying test bed is chock full of instruments and has the safety of three other engines.

And to build a flying test bed for one engine is not a business case.
The west mostly seems to use the 747s as test bed aircraft.

But seriously, since when has anything done in India ever been considered from a business case point of view??

Below is the Pratt and Whitney test bed.

Image
JTull
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by JTull »

ramana wrote:
Bart S wrote:Is this something that we necessarily need Gromov's help with? Would a used Boeing 747 serve the purpose? Or is it really the Gromov/TSAGI expertise that we need?

The flying test bed is chock full of instruments and has the safety of three other engines.

And to build a flying test bed for one engine is not a business case.
Having a flying test bed is no different than having a land-based prototype of AIP or submarine nuclear-reactor.

Perhaps the Snecma audit was needed because IAF and MoD bureaucrats didn't believe anything GTRE said.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by JayS »

ramana wrote:Rakesh and Prasanna, This is like getting the foreign expert to come and bless the project.
Was GTRE so lacking in confidence they needed this?
Rhetoric question..? Because we Indians have habit of trusting outsiders more than our own brethren. Anything said by our guys can be simply dismissed. Its not easy to dismiss a stamp by Gora Sahib.

Its been already known that Snecma did technical audit of Kaveri (I think from the perspective of evaluating value of work package for offset purpose) during 2016. I have been trying to point out precisely this same thing many times here, that the audit must have shown that Kaveri is already past all major technical problems and only integration with aircraft and flight test program must be the major work packages intended for Snecma to help with. This was rather clear from the claim that Kaveri will be flightworthy in 2yrs. Later we saw during Aero India that GTRE claiming they have resolved all the issues. We even got some published technical material to support their claim to some extent.

But the French magic is so overwhelming that some of us went kite flying and started having wet dreams of Kaveri-88 with M88 core flying in LCA in two years from signing of contract. And reality is even with French stamp, Kaveri still is not moving anywhere. They had sum total of 147hrs of engine testing in whole one year...!!! They are still thinking over funding for 90kN version, the procurement of FTB is still in "to be or not to be" phase.

Snecma is closely associated with GTRE over the decades. They already have had pretty decent idea of the status of the project even without audit. Its rather cheeky for them to charge us $1B for covering remaining milestones to make it fly. Also we should keep in mind that making Kaveri flightworthy is not the end of the things. We will still have long way to do from there.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Karan M »

France does have a track record (as does Russia) of working with us "core" technology, albeit at a heavy price.
In the 1980's, it was Thales then Thomson CSF which allowed BEL engineers to work with French guys in radars via the PSM-33 program, then the Sagem (now Safran) guys transferred TOT to HAL for the INS which went on the Jaguars.
Today, France has signed deals with us for the XR5 (Photonis) tube for BEL, again tech which US would never give us (comes under restricted) and then worked with DRDO on their semiconductors & also gave us Master-A for the BMD program (http://www.radartutorial.eu/19.kartei/0 ... ster_A.pdf).
I wouldn't be surprised if Snecma actually provided useful inputs to GTRE (albeit not complete tech) for the Kaveri.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by prasannasimha »

Chaiwall told Paanwalla that there was no funding however work was going on silently but the funding was severely cut off. There are people who slogged for years on Kaveri against multiple odds(Example - you want a particular alloy - no company will do it for a small run and the babu's will not pay premium for a small smelting run. So things became more and more frustrating for them. Then came the huge budget cut that added to the problem. Some were so bitter about what was happening but could not talk. Its not that they were hatching eggs there - many intelligent people were slogging their heads off but then there are people who wanted to see it fail as engine market is a big money maker !! In fact one person told me it was very much flight worthy but if you do not get a flying test bed to clock in the hours and allow to fine tune how can you do it ? Now someone has certified so things move quickly !
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by chola »

prasannasimha wrote:Chaiwall told Paanwalla that there was no funding however work was going on silently but the funding was severely cut off. There are people who slogged for years on Kaveri against multiple odds(Example - you want a particular alloy - no company will do it for a small run and the babu's will not pay premium for a small smelting run. So things became more and more frustrating for them. Then came the huge budget cut that added to the problem. Some were so bitter about what was happening but could not talk. Its not that they were hatching eggs there - many intelligent people were slogging their heads off but then there are people who wanted to see it fail as engine market is a big money maker !! In fact one person told me it was very much flight worthy but if you do not get a flying test bed to clock in the hours and allow to fine tune how can you do it ? Now someone has certified so things move quickly !

Much about this rings true in large companies as well.

A small department can be working on something with a lot of potential but some higher ups in the management chain decides he can’t recoup the costs from his budget so he cuts off or reduces funds.

But then a respected consultant comes in and audits the product and tells the babu with the purse strings that the work is good and there is potential.

The truth is not confidence of GTRE but the confidence the MOD or those higher up in GOI have of the Kaveri. It might be that nothing that desis can do will convince those babus in power. But a respected firm populated by godlike gora can do this onlee.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by chetak »

chola wrote:
prasannasimha wrote:Chaiwall told Paanwalla that there was no funding however work was going on silently but the funding was severely cut off. There are people who slogged for years on Kaveri against multiple odds(Example - you want a particular alloy - no company will do it for a small run and the babu's will not pay premium for a small smelting run. So things became more and more frustrating for them. Then came the huge budget cut that added to the problem. Some were so bitter about what was happening but could not talk. Its not that they were hatching eggs there - many intelligent people were slogging their heads off but then there are people who wanted to see it fail as engine market is a big money maker !! In fact one person told me it was very much flight worthy but if you do not get a flying test bed to clock in the hours and allow to fine tune how can you do it ? Now someone has certified so things move quickly !

Much about this rings true in large companies as well.

A small department can be working on something with a lot of potential but some higher ups in the management chain decides he can’t recoup the costs from his budget so he cuts off or reduces funds.

But then a respected consultant comes in and audits the product and tells the babu with the purse strings that the work is good and there is potential.

The truth is not confidence of GTRE but the confidence the MOD or those higher up in GOI have of the Kaveri. It might be that nothing that desis can do will convince those babus in power. But a respected firm populated by godlike gora can do this onlee.
This is not such a simple matter of blaming the baboo(n)s.

The collateral damage from loss of credibility is very destructive and also has far reaching consequences.

It is also a self inflicted wound that may take many many years to heal.

It is not just the baboo(n)s who need to be convinced but their dreaded cousins, the financial guys, the bean counters who are very knowledgeable and keenly incisive in getting to the root of any issue to clearly see the bottlenecks. They may not be so very technically competent in engineering terms but are clearly able to know when shit is being peddled.

I have been in meetings where the project managers and the lab heads have been ripped to shreds by these very bean counters and left almost on the verge of breakdowns because their shit could not ride out the scrutiny.

It is not just the funding but also the technical ROI that is being evaluated. Already scarce funds are being cut and redeployed in other sectors where the ROI is more tangible and results more promising.

The days of easy money are long gone. No more project sanctions or extensions over whiskey and tandoori chicken.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by habal »

If I am to appropriate ideas from the chinese engine development program, which as opposed to us is a program on steroids. My guess is the French will provide provide low pressure compressor tech for kaveri. And rest will remain as is.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ramana »

Chetak wrote: I have been in meetings where the project managers and the lab heads have been ripped to shreds by these very bean counters and left almost on the verge of breakdowns because their shit could not ride out the scrutiny.

It is not just the funding but also the technical ROI that is being evaluated. Already scarce funds are being cut and redeployed in other sectors where the ROI is more tangible and results more promising.


The days of easy money are long gone. No more project sanctions or extensions over whiskey and tandoori chicken.
This is a worldwide phenomenon.
I have been in similar meetings also.
Don't mind lekin but bean counting has an acute BS meter.

Chetak just a few posts before you were wondering if Business case is ever made in India!!!
Bean counter intervention is best example.


JayS, Rakesh et al thanks for keeping faith in GTRE capability vis a vis Kaveri.
Unfortunately I don't. Been burnt for three decades since 1985 following this low bypass flat rated turbojet with a Rallis fan!

Sincerity of work does not substitute for technical competence.*
Its just like that dhabha guy who says Bombay toast mil jayega when he has no clue what it is!

Also I don't get how 147 hours of ground testing has eliminated all the main problems dogging Kaveri : screech, under performing thrust levels, mfg difficulties .
As others have pointed out its bringing a phoren expert to sprinkle holy waters and bless the local design just like hey fly in UK surgeons to confirm the diagnosis already reached by desi doctors.
The joke is even the UK surgeons are desi!!!

Anyway hope this Kaveri gets put on a plane and gets tested.
If I recall original specs IAF wanted a 1000 hours on operations before it gets inducted.

the way GE is melting down in US, its good to push for Kaveri certification.

* PS : I want GTRE to be split up as part of DRDO reform. The engine design and development should be attached to HAL Engine Division for future spinoff to an engine making company. GTR can still work on basic/fundamental research in Gas Turbine research. This attaching Engine design and development to a research institute leads to no research and worse no engine.

Prasanna,
Can you ask paanwalla what are the fundamental papers that GTRE has published since inception? Wont find more than a handful as its mostly imitative research form Cranfield or Wright Patterson.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by chetak »

^^^^^^^
@ramana ji,

Bean counters are a fairly recent phenomena and were not a reviewing part of meetings earlier. Older projects did not have them in the early days.

Projects that have frequently overshot their deadlines and carried on regardless for decades have by force, acquired bean counters because of changing regulations and increased accountability now being demanded by stake holders.

It is here that loss of credibility has hit the hardest and funding has virtually dried up.

Like I said, self inflicted wounds leave very visible scars and no amount of plastic surgery will remedy the situation.

Yes, to a certain extent, baboo(n)s are responsible but serious introspection will yield a better understanding.

The infrastructure and staffing and financial outlay for a flying test bed may well rival and even eclipse the present outlay of the parent lab itself.

White elephants, by definition, are a very rare commodity but given the right environment, they tend to breed fairly rapidly.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by chola »

^^^ The overarching problem to all this is that the Kaveri is a lab experiment and not an industrial project.

When an US, Rus or Chini project fails there is always a backup plan from the industry.

The chini WS-15 slated for their uber J-20 is blowing up during tests but they have a bunch of WS-10 variants and upgrades they can fall back on. The same with their WS-13 backing their WS-19 for the F-31. All of these variants necessitate the procurement of that expensive flying testbed from the same Russian facility that tested the Kaveri.

That is how an industry works. It is built on top of thousands of pistons, turboprops and turbojets before the holy grail combat turbofan.

When GTRE started on the medium turban in the same class as the RD-33 (which the experienced Russians can’t get totally right then or now) we had never even built a piston that was productionized. Two decades later we still had to import a piston for Rustom I.

We have to build that industry. Our engine programs can’t hinge on lab experiments whose existence depend on the approval of government beancounters.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by chetak »

Image
hanumadu
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by hanumadu »

Saurav Jha


@SJha1618
Following Following @SJha1618
More
Schematic for a new with high inlet pressure distortion tolerance under development at GTRE. The objective of the project is to design 'a fan with 3:4:1 pressure ratio and 78 kg/s mass flow in three stages for future military aircraft' .
Source: #DRDOAnnualReport2016
Image


The mass flow is the same as the current Kaveri.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ramana »

GTRE keeps throwing futuristic bread crumbs to throw off the jackals after them for Kaveri non performance.

What is a schematic supposed to do?
Gives hope?
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Indranil »

Ramana sir,

There are already manufacturing this.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ramana »

OK. No outrage from me.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by hanumadu »

Indranil wrote:Ramana sir,

There are already manufacturing this.
Where are they using it? Kaveri?
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Pratyush »

When will it fly. Don't care about the different designs being shown or the solution being presented.

The most important aspect of any aero engine is for it to fly the way it is intended to perform.

Please make it fly.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by jaysimha »

Did we miss this?
Macron's engine offer for Tejas aimed at powering
more Rafale sales By Justin Paul George
https://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/npc/20 ... ch2018.pdf


the first two of 99 F414 engines on order reached India in 2017 din't know this
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Indranil »

hanumadu wrote:
Indranil wrote:Ramana sir,

There are already manufacturing this.
Where are they using it? Kaveri?
AFAIK with kabini core.
jaysimha wrote:Did we miss this?
Macron's engine offer for Tejas aimed at powering
more Rafale sales By Justin Paul George
https://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/npc/20 ... ch2018.pdf


the first two of 99 F414 engines on order reached India in 2017 din't know this
This is very old news. And both malfunctioned. Dr. Saraswat pulled up the GE gents in front of everybody in the AeroIndia seminar. He basically said that both not working cannot be put down to coincidence.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by kit »

Indranil wrote:
hanumadu wrote:
Where are they using it? Kaveri?
AFAIK with kabini core.
jaysimha wrote:Did we miss this?
Macron's engine offer for Tejas aimed at powering
more Rafale sales By Justin Paul George
https://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/npc/20 ... ch2018.pdf


the first two of 99 F414 engines on order reached India in 2017 din't know this
This is very old news. And both malfunctioned. Dr. Saraswat pulled up the GE gents in front of everybody in the AeroIndia seminar. He basically said that both not working cannot be put down to coincidence.
probably the contract did not have a clause for penalties .. almost sure about it ..western contractors are notorious for doing this
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ramana »

Usually such high value items have source acceptance. I.E a HAL designated official to witness inspection and test reports and accept the items before they are shipped.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by barath_s »

There's not been much news on kaveri marine since 2008 except a cryptic message in 2014. Has Kaveri marine been abandoned (aka deprioritized ) ?

Are the Rajput class still candidates or are they likely to go the Ukrainian/possible JVroute for mid-life refits ?

The lack of news combined with the almost closure of Kaveri and demand on resources (eg in favor of new M88 core work) makes me suspect it has been given a virtual death. Any actual news ?
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Neshant »

Let's hope the Kaveri does not turn out like the 100 year Arjun tank project.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by Pratyush »

The only way it gets built, is when btue Khan imposes sanctions against India under caasta. And Rafael gets turned into a poisoned chalice by Congress Post 2019.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by dinesh_kimar »

GTRE tested Kaveri for approx. 160 h in 2016 and 155 h in 2017.
(This was as per plan- apparently the first time in Kaveri program that the planned target was achieved).

Test duration is very close to 150 h cyclic endurance required before Airframe integration (MIL STD 500).

Looks like GTRE tested for endurance twice, and did indepth analysis / redesign of components . They also did a Heat transient test.

The flying testbed trails in Russia already completed successfully, not required anymore for this particular engine .

(I understand that tests like behavior at Mach 0.6 to 0.7, engine relight, altitude behavior, and plotting engine performance envelope are done in Flying test bed phase).

The avbl literature suggests major milestones are as follows: Bench testing- >Flying test bed-> 150h Endurance test- >Airframe integration and test.

The last mile?
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by habal »

So the first 150 hr test done was not satisfactory and the blade flutter, reheat oscillation, compressor vibration/noise where found during this phase. In second 150 hour test GTRE claums to have sorted out all issues but no Indian organization has domain experience to certify/audit a jet turbine so safran roped in.
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ArjunPandit »

dinesh_kimar wrote:GTRE tested Kaveri for approx. 160 h in 2016 and 155 h in 2017.
(This was as per plan- apparently the first time in Kaveri program that the planned target was achieved).

Test duration is very close to 150 h cyclic endurance required before Airframe integration (MIL STD 500).

Looks like GTRE tested for endurance twice, and did indepth analysis / redesign of components . They also did a Heat transient test.

The flying testbed trails in Russia already completed successfully, not required anymore for this particular engine .

(I understand that tests like behavior at Mach 0.6 to 0.7, engine relight, altitude behavior, and plotting engine performance envelope are done in Flying test bed phase).

The avbl literature suggests major milestones are as follows: Bench testing- >Flying test bed-> 150h Endurance test- >Airframe integration and test.

The last mile?
Good post Dinesh, would you have some idea how long does it take for the airframe integration and test
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by dinesh_kimar »

^ Air frame integration maybe 4-5 months ballpark (lot of different qualification tests).

Flight test about 500 h and about 600 + tests. (Eurofighter with similar 90 KN engine.It took them about 2 years, with 2 Typhoons made available)

2-3 years more ?
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ramana »

habal wrote:So the first 150 hr test done was not satisfactory and the blade flutter, reheat oscillation, compressor vibration/noise where found during this phase. In second 150 hour test GTRE claims to have sorted out all issues but no Indian organization has domain experience to certify/audit a jet turbine so safran roped in.

And Safran had some recent report about what they did for technical audit.

They mention 145 hours running.

here one page ago:

viewtopic.php?p=2279257#p2279257
ramana
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ramana »

I think the oldest PV1 birds might be handed over if the air-frame has enough structural life.
habal
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by habal »

It sure is exciting times to be part of gtre for they get to integrate an engine with an aircraft. So much of things they get to learn. Good times.
ArjunPandit
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Re: Kaveri & aero-engine discussion

Post by ArjunPandit »

if true, we just need to ward off against some tempting offer by Khan. It will find its way and that too soon. I am afraid that this is what COMCASA is all about, utilize all capital overlay for F35 and leave no money for Kaveri/Tejas/AMCA/AC/Subs
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