A new design and test facility has just been established at the Aero Engine Research and Development Centre (AERDC) of the Indian Defense Public Sector Unit HAL in Bengaluru. With the implementation of the modernisation plan, a brand new facility that is more than 10,000 square metres in size has been built.
AERDC is currently engaged in the process of designing and developing several new engines, including two strategic engines. The Hindustan Turbo Fan Engine (HTFE), with a thrust of 25 kN, is designed to power trainers, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), twin-engine small fighter aircraft, or regional jets. The Hindustan Turbo Shaft Engine (HTSE) with a thrust of 1200 kN is designed to power light and medium-weight helicopters with 3.5 to 6.5 tonnes and configured with a single or twin engine.
Special machinery, complex setups that make use of computational tools, an in-house manufacturing facility, and two test beds for testing HTFE-25 and one testbed each for testing HTSE-1200 and a planned joint venture engine for IMRH that will be co-developed by Safran, France, and HAL are all housed in the brand-new facility that is considered to be state-of-the-art.
In addition, the newly constructed facility is equipped with setups for testing the Air producer of Jaguar, the Gas Turbine Starter Unit (GTSU) -110 M2 and 127E of LCA, the Auxiliary Power Units of IMRH and AMCA, and the Gas Turbine Electrical Generator (GTEG) -60 for the An-32 aircraft. Furthermore, within the new facility, other setups have been built to carry out a variety of crucial testing for engine components and LRUs.
As the only design house that has constructed test beds for engines of both Western and Russian origin, the Centre, which was established in the 1960s, retains the unique distinction of being the only design house to have done so. In addition to the PTAE-7 engine, which is the first indigenous turbojet engine in India and is used to power Lakshya target Unmanned Aircraft, the Centre has also successfully developed and certified the Gas Turbine Electrical Generator GTEG-60, which is used to start An-32 aircraft, the Air starter ATS 37 and the Air producer, which are used to start Adour-Mk 804E/811 on Jaguar aircraft, and the Shakti engine, which is used to power ALH.
