Part 9 (1/2)
Aging and disabled children These ill.u.s.trations give you idea of how extensively and intensively advanced materials have penetrated every sphere of modern life. The subsequent chapter will show where we stand as a country with regard to materials, our strengths, our weaknesses and the vision for the future.
Before doing so let us look at a few touching incidents at least for the authors they are ill.u.s.trative of the human dimensions of modern advanced materials.
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I quote from my address at a tenday workshop on Indigenous Production and Distribution of a.s.sertive Devices Chennai on 5 September 1995.
A year back, an article appeared in the press on 'Missile for Medicine'. The article highlights our experiment of adapting certain missile technologies into certain socially useful medial products primarily to bring them within the reach of the common man. Reading in the article about an ultralight floor reaction orthicons which our scientists developed from a high specific strength material used to make radiotransparent heat s.h.i.+eld of missiles, to a.s.sist polio affected children in walking , an exserviceman hailing form a middle cla.s.s family in Karnataka wrote to us. He enquired whether something could be done for his twelveyearold daughter who was suffering from residual polio of the lower limb and was forced to drag herself with a 4.5kg caliper made out of wood, leather and metallic strip. Our scientists invited the father and the daughter to our laboratory in Hyderabad, and together with orthopedic doctors at the n.a.z.ism's Inst.i.tute of medial Sciences there, designed a KAFO (knee Ankle Foot Outhouses) weighting merely 400gm. The child got a near normal gait while walking with this a.s.sertive device. The parent wrote to us a couple of months later that the device breathed a new life in his daughter and she had learned cycling and started going to school on her own. The girls regained a near normal lifestyle... when I see this enthusiastic gathering today with the focus to provide support to the disabled. I realized that our dream to provide similar devices in standard sixes to millions will surely get transformed into reality.
Such devices can be sold at a affordable price, thus making even a business venture to manufacture them not only sustainable but also profitable. We believe that a chain of small scale industries can emerge in the industrial estates located in various states.
India's material resources
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Let us come back to the hurlyburly hardheaded industrials and business world. Is it necessary to have good material resources base ores and minerals to become a developed country? America has a rich resources base so does Russia China's rich minerals resources base is helping her in speedy economic growth Australia too is well off in this regard. Most Africa is endowed with some of the best minerals ores many Africa countries were colonized because of this. Now, even after independence, a number of developed countries propped up regimes in African countries which can a.s.sure them of these mineral resources but which do not bother about local growth. Therefore much of Africa is poor , despite having the richest of minerals deposits. j.a.pan, on the contrary, has practically no mineral resource base of significance. j.a.pan exports steel ,builds s.h.i.+ps, and is avowedly the economic and technological leader of this century. The j.a.panese mastered technologies to use their mineral and materials for economic and practical gains. High cost products flow to the countries which supplied the minerals as s.h.i.+ps, cars , finished steels products and in several other forms. That is how the economic strength of nations which master technologies is built up. There are also other interesting dimensions to theses technological strength of deriving product out of ores. In some case , developed and industrialized nation deny products derived form the ors to the very countries from which they got the ores in the first place , on the grounds that these products are of strategic use. I recall an experience during the seventies when I was developing SLV3, India 's first satellite launch vehicle. For making gyroscopes required for the guidance systems, the project required a few beryllium products. An American company making them declined to supply these. It was found that that a j.a.panese company was making some parts of the product and therefore the project approached them. That company also declined. I now wanted to find out more about beryllium . It turned out that India has one of the richest stocks of beryllium ores, which it also supplies to developed countries. They have the technologies to convert this ore into metal and also to shape it according to the needs of the project . beryllium is a toxic metal and requires a lot of care in handling, but as a metal it has many wonderful properties
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which makes it unique for gyroscopes or imaging cameras or other application .The berylliumcopper combination creates products having Several unique applications in electronics .
The denial of beryllium products was one of the early lessons for me : if you don't have the technology, your natural resource is of no value to you . Now, of course , India does not have to beg others for beryllium products. The technologists of ISRO and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) have set up a beryllium machining facility at Vas.h.i.+ Mumbai. Indian ore is finding its way to the Indian s.p.a.ce , atomic energy and industrial Projects ! The project was gained by Dr.C.V.Sundaram, an eminent material scientist, and was encouraged by Dr.Raja Ramanna, the then director of BARC .
Fortunately , India has a number of excellent mineral resources. It has very good iron deposits manganese ores, etc . As for the wonder modern metal t.i.tanium , India tops the list of countries having this resource. We have one of the best quality bauxite ores in the world. We also have several rare earth strategic and high value mineral resources we have rich beryl ores to supply beryllium and abundant resources( about three million tones)of monozite, a source for many rare metal .
How are we using them? Much better than independence Jamshyd N.Tata had to face many difficulties before setting up a plant in Jamshedpur about a hundred years ago, because because those who colonized us wanted us to remain as merely exporters of ore. We have come a long way. We make our aluminium and aluminium alloys we make our steel_but not all varieties, not still a quant.i.ty comment substrate with our potential and capabilities . It is so with several other ores, minerals and materials.
When Indian built the Rourkela steel plant with German technology ,its quality and cost compet.i.tiveness at that time, i.e. in the 1960s, was one of the best in the world .
did we build upon that strength on the strength of many technologists, technicians and administrative personnel that made it happen? The answer ,unfortunately, is no. We allowed things to slip. We were running between America and the than Soviet Union (now Russia ) to build Bokara . Even after that , we were generally slack. The steel research and developed center at Ranchi was not truly integrated with the steel technology of the country. The Steel Development Fund established by the Government of India played only a limited role in developing core compet.i.tive
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strength in the Indian steel industry. But we need not lament about the missed opportunities. As Henry Ford often used to say, 'Burn my factories but give me the people who were there I will build a new business.' We still have a number of persons in our country in steel Authority of India Ltd., (SAIL), Tata Iron and Steel company (TISCO) and many other big and small steel plant who have the capabilities . They have the will to excel and transform the country , given a long term vision.
If we now consider the case of alloys, we may ask if we have made an Indian one in recent times . We makes use of steel alloys, designed by the US or France or sometimes Russia. When it comes to alloys, like t.i.tanium aluminium alloys, technologies are mostly of European or US origin . I have asked many Indian material scientists as to why such a situation exists where by not even a single alloys has been created despite India's materials research. They reply : in our nation the golden triangle of R&D labacademiaindustry has not yet emerged . We will truly arrive as a country with advanced material technology when we create effective golden from our own knowledge base.
Similarly, in other metallic and materials sectors as well , we have capabilities .
Considering India's natural resources as well as industrial and R&D capabilities, we can narrow down thirteen areas for special attention . These are the areas in which India can excel and can have a longterm and sustainable compet.i.tive advantage over many decades, even beyond the year 2020. We know of many scientists in India who are committed to the development of these areas . They have the knowledge base .They itch for action . Many of them met with frustrations due to the slow decisionmaking process. Too little was given to them too late in their lives . But most of them still have hope alive in them .
These thirteen areas are : steel, t.i.tanium, aluminium, rare earths, composites, ceramics , building materials, photonic materials, superconducting materials, polymeric materials , nuclear material, biomaterials as a generic technology areas of surface engineering.
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Materials to increase nation strengths Steel: with abundant iron ore resources (12000 million tones) and a well established base for steel production in India , steel is poised for strong growth in the coming decades . Production will increase from the current 17MT to 31MT by 2001 and 66MT by 2011. India will become an important global player, exporting about 5 to 8 MT by 2011. While steel continue to have a strong hold in the traditional sector such as construction, housing and ground transportation, special steels will be increasing used in hitech engineering industries such as power generation, petrochemicals, fertilizers, etc . The blast furnace route for iron production will dominate in the future also. The share of continuously cast steel will increase to more than 75 per cent . Steel will continue to be the most popular, versatile and dominant material for wideranging industrial applications . While Indian may still not become a leader in the world steel marked, it can become a powerful force. Indian can give strong compet.i.tion to China and South korea in the world markets S.L.N.Acharyulu of DRDO who heads the action team to realize the vision 2020 for the material sector has made several interesting observations. There are about thirtyfive blast furnaces in various steel plants in our country with an installed capacity of approximately 18 million tones. The ministeel sector account for the balance, which together const.i.tute the total installed steel making capacity of about 30 million tones. Despite the high installed capacity, the utilization is fairy low.
Although overall the cost of production of steel in India is low, our cost of processing hot metal to liquid steel is higher. In order to sustain this overall edge in the cost of production for a long time, attention should be paid to key factors const.i.tuting the cost of inputs such as labour , energy, raw material and so on. The labour component in the cost of production is two to three times lower than that of the developed countries and is close to China. But the energy costs are almost double that of the developed countries. Our raw material costs are also higher, although marginally so, while the other indirect cost elements are nearly similar. Disturbingly, the pollution levels are very high in Indian steel plants and viewed in the context of the very low emission levels achieved in the plants operational globally, urgent action needs to be taken here as well.
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In spite of the relative advantage of the lower cost of iron ore and lower labour costs accruable to the domestic steel industry , the long term sustainability of the overall low cost of Production is threatened primarily by higher c.o.ke rates in ironmaking and higher total energy consumption. It is heartening to note that the blast furnace operations have progressively improved over the years . However, our steel plants have not yet reached world standards in the rates of c.o.ke consumption, a single most important index in iron making and specific energy consumption . Some of them lag far behind. The current international standard of achievement of c.o.ke consumption is about 500kg per tonne of hot metal. One Indian steel plants is close it Other are in the range of 550kg to 600kg and still other are in the range of even 700kg of c.o.ke! Similarly, the international standard of achievement of energy consumption is about 6giga calories per tonne the average Indian achievement is about 8.5giga calories per tonne. A few year ago it was in the range of 1012 giga calories per tonne. If the Indian steel industry is to be compet.i.tive, it has to tackle this energy consumption norm very vigorously. In the coming years energy prices are going to rise and hence the need to conserve more energy.
As we present this vision in 1998, some of the stalwarts in the steel sector, which is presently undergoing severe market problems and is marked by a downward trend in production and sale, may be cynical . However, most of the present problems are connected with a general slowdown in industrial demand during 199798. It is extremely unlikely that these trends will continue. India is continuing to show all the signs of a fastgrowing economy . That means, consumption of steel products will go up. Using this marked base, we should be ready to compete in outside markets. We now have problems of compet.i.tion with steel from China and South Korea in our domestic markets . If our steel industry gears up in Indian and foreign markets. Our vision should be towards this. t.i.tanium: India occupies the top place in terms of global reserves, possessing 37per cent of the world's illmenite ores. With the t.i.tanium industry on a sound footing and the growing application base for t.i.tanium and its alloys , our projection is That t.i.tanium will see a much larger and significant usage in the country . The production of mill products will go up from the present 100 to 5,000 tons/year by 2020. t.i.tanium will penetrate into non aeros.p.a.ce sectors like the
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naval, marine, oil and gas , power generation , etc. t.i.tanium will also become popular in application such as surgical tools, decorative items, building , architecture and jewellery. Development of cheaper alloys, e.g. t.i.taniumAluminiumIron(TiAlFe ) will facilitate access into commercial markets . Development of alloys with higher temperature capability, near net shaping technologies and isothermal forging will pave the way for an increased role of t.i.tanium in aeros.p.a.ce. t.i.tanium castings will be produced in India for extensive application in the aeros.p.a.ce, chemical, marine and mechanical engineering sector.
A story about how our decisionmaking system failed to make good some great opportunities in relation to t.i.tanium may be told here. Prof M.M. Sharma, an eminent technologist: and educationist, speaks, with deep emotion as he lists several such missed opportunities. He narrates in detail how many committees were formed , reports generated and files created, often to lead to a ma.s.sive nonaction for decades. For him the case of the t.i.tanium industry tops the list of missed opportunities.