Capability and Tools / Technology Mapping

The Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) has established an expert group, led by Dr. B. Basu, Principal Engineering Investigator, FNAE, Prof. K.A. Padmanabhan, Co-PI and former Director, IIT Kanpur, and Dr. S. Kamat, Co-PI and DG, NS&M, to prepare a technology roadmap with actionable recommendations for “Accelerated Materials Discovery, Scale-up and Exploitation Strategies for Strategic Materials Needs of India”. Materials form a critical part of a nation’s progress touching all aspects of life and industry. However, design, development, production and deployment of materials is an expensive process involving significant efforts, cost and time and this has been a hindrance to investments in our country to develop new materials. There is an urgent need to address this issue by developing technologies, capabilities and infrastructure to accelerate materials development while reducing the cost, as well as the environmental footprint in certain cases.

The group has identified the following five foundational proof of concept problems for engineering realization of structural / engineering materials:

• Advanced Steels for Critical Applications: This workstream deals with the discovery-development-deployment cycle of advanced steels for critical applications. The ICME based technology roadmap addresses twin tasks of initial alloy design and process scale-up. The discovery-development phase aims to design an alloy for critical applications that meets the target mechanical qualities, including room temperature yield strength and sub-zero temperature impact toughness. Manufacturability, repeatability, and reliability are addressed during the subsequent development-deployment phase.

• Next Generation Super-alloys for Thermal Power Plants: Our country is engaged in the indigenous development and manufacturing of seamless tubes of alloy ASTM B983 (ASME Code Case: 2702) with India specific composition for high temperature/pressure (~720oC/310 bar and beyond) applications such as Advanced Ultra Super Critical Power Plant (AUSCPP). This workstream aims to develop an ICME based technology roadmap for accelerated indigenous development of superalloys for AUSC technology materials for current and future needs.

• Automotive Lightweighting: This workstream aims to create a roadmap for the technology development for automotive lightweighting through weight-saving designs, materials, and manufacturing processes. The concepts feeding into the roadmap would account for end-user driving comfort, technical feasibility, scalability, manufacturability, economic viability, and sustainability. The work would envisage the use of ICME tools to develop materials to meet the lightweighting requirements that could have a secular application for both ICV and EVs. The work package would use the front-end assembly and alloy wheels as use cases to drive AI-enabled generative design and topology optimizations tools to propose design and material changes to meet the lightweighting goals.

• Super-alloy based Component Development through PM Routes: The workstream deals with developing powder metallurgy Ni-base superalloy aero-engine turbine discs for application in advanced aircraft. It envisages adopting an ICME based approach to design a process path for a given P/M alloy composition to meet the specified target properties and performance of components of different sizes and shapes. The proposed roadmap will assist in the indigenous development of an isothermal forge press with the required capacity to forge turbine discs up to 550 mm in diameter.

• Ti-alloy based Bio-implants: This workstream focuses on establishing Ti-based bio-medical implants as a viable replacement for steel-based implants in our country and assisting capacity-building and creating global supply chains to achieve a growth-oriented roadmap for this sector. This roadmap will identify significant issues in the Ti bio-implant development process, from raw materials to GMP-level production (product quality evaluation) to certification-related documentation, and will offer actionable advice for developing indigenous products.

One of the significant components of this project is compiling the capabilities and various tools / technologies available in India so that a roadmap with actionable recommendations may be developed. In order to achieve this goal, the ICME National Hub at IIT Kanpur, in association with INAE, is organizing an online Workshop on Capability and Tools / Technology Mapping.

Workshop Flyer