Page 216 - Technology Roadmap Transportation

TECHNOLOGY VISION 2035

3.0

STATUS OF TECHNOLOGY

The aviation sector is internationally one of 3.1 AIRCRAFT TECHNOLOGIES –
the most regulated sector and the aviation GLOBAL CONTEXT
technologies and products are required The basic consideration of all the aircraft
to comply with very stringent certification technologies remains to be on reduction in drag
requirements laid down by International Civil and aircraft weight for reduction in fuel burnt;
Aviation Organization (ICAO). Therefore, the improved propulsive and thermal efficiency of
technology development and deployment cycle is the engines; improved navigation performance
a very long process often taking decades before to fly shortest path and also increasing airspace
a new technology is implemented. Owing to capacity by reduced separation.
the nature of aerospace manufacturing industry,
there are only few global players at the fore front 3.1.1 Airframe Design, Materials and
of aviation technologies who are in a position Manufacturing; Airframe design has evolved
to invest huge sum of money for development over the period of time along with advances in
of new technologies and manage the complex propulsion systems, materials and computational
product development cycle as well as provide fluid dynamics. Evolution of airframe technology
continuous support over life time of the aircraft. is shown in fig 3.1.
These global players, therefore, drive all the
innovation and technology development in the The modern airframes are designed on
sector. Almost all the technologies in the civil air computers using advanced 3D simulation models
transport from aircraft to ANS infrastructure based on computational fluid dynamics and
are imported in the country and globally latest analytics, whereby each airframe component can
technologies are therefore available in country. be tested for aerodynamics performance and
structural safety under all the possible hostile
In terms of domestic capabilities, except HAL operating conditions under which an aircraft
which has developed expertise at tier-1 level will operate. The use of CAD results in faster
in licensed manufacturing of aircraft mainly for designs and improved accuracy in part design
defence requirements, the rest of the industry is and assembly, improving the quality of designs,
at tier-3 level in the supply chain. With opening and therefore a reduction in time to market.
up of the defence manufacturing for private Another important technology used in aircraft
companies and FDI (upto 26%) in 2001, major design ‘fatigue life analysis’ using computer
industrial houses have entered the field and simulation models to determine the safe life of
targeting a larger set of capabilities in the sector. the components and an effective I&M schedule
Now with the Government’s ‘Make in India’ for all the critical components. Some of the
initiative and opening up the sector for FDI, current technologies employed in the area of
lot of big industrial houses have entered in the airframe, design, material, manufacturing and
fray. In the last two decades Indian technology aircraft systems are discussed below:
companies have made significant progress in
providing software engineering services to the a) Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) uses
global aerospace majors, Indian companies are numerical methods and algorithms to simulate
recognized for their capabilities to meet the fluid flows and interactions with surfaces. The
very stringent quality requirements of the sector. advancements in computation power and
However, the civil aerospace manufacturing supercomputers have allowed faster setup and
ecosystem is still at a nascent stage in the runtimes, better design accuracy, and capacity
country. This section presents status of aviation to handle greater design complexities leading
technologies in the global context and offers to more efficient aircraft designs and significant
a perspective on the status of aerospace saving from reduced wind tunnel and flight
technology and manufacturing capabilities in validations. Boeing 787 was designed using
India. 800,000 hours of computing time on Cray

214 AIRWAYS