Speculations regarding India's servicing of Russian AL-31FP engine, is India working on it to master its own engine tech ?

Source : RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Russian Saturn NPO AL-31FP thrust-vectoring engine that is used on Indian Sukhoi Su-30MKI (File Photo)

GTRE old tender documents that was floated for manufacturing of a Fan section in 2014 that could support a mass airflow of 100 kg/sec with fan weight of 180kg which is more than what could be required to develop a Dry Kaveri engine variant that requires 78 kg/sec is sparking speculation on social media that it could be a new engine development that has been codenamed ” Ganga”.

High 100 kg/sec Mass airflow demand suggests that the Dry Power generation requirement from the engine will be around 88kN and with an Afterburner section that could be in the range of 123-125kN Class of thrust that is similar to the Russian AL-31FP version with thrust vector control that is installed on Su-30MKI fleet that is currently in service with IAF.

It’s speculated that Kalyani had won the tender to supply 4-5 new fan section back then for this program, but it’s not clear if was an active project or as part of the research and development. Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL) and GTRE are using AL-31FP to test the endurance of the new bi-layer Thermal Barrier Coating (TBC) and in a way, it is also used to further advance the development of next-generation technologies for the Indigenous modular two-shaft turbofan engine for application beyond AMCA.

Some are speculating that Project Ganga is attempt to reverse engineer the AL-31FP engine for which India has received full Transfer of Technology (ToT) and can manufacture them from Raw material stage in India itself but some see it to Fix technical issues in the AL-31FP engines and improve its Mean Time Between Overhaul (MTBO) but nothing is clear at this point of time what actual intended was or if the program is still active.

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