Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on March 29, 2016 flagged off India’s first indigenous composites sonar dome during DefExpo 2016 in Goa. The sonar dome has been designed by R&DE(E), a DRDO lab based in Pune, and manufactured by composites manufacturing company Kineco Ltd, Pilerne (Goa).
With this, India has joined a select group of nations which have the capability of realising large composites structure with multi-functional requirements, complex geometry and high structural rigidity with acoustic transparency. This was possible due to the vacuum assisted resin transfer moulding (VARTM) process technology with built-in process monitoring capability, to ensure manufacture of a quality product, developed at R&DE(E). In this process, manufacturing technology was successfully transferred to Kineco, who have now joined a select band of companies worldwide with this capability.
“This will now pave the way for realising more ambitious naval structures such as entire ship hulls as well as land based and aerospace applications,” said a Ministry of Defence press release.
