BBN Bureau
KOCHI/July 28-2022: Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL), the largest public sector shipyard and the only shipyard under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways on Thursday (July 28) delivered the first indigenously built Aircraft Carrier (IAC-1) to the Indian Navy.
The handing over function of the ship was held at CSL premises at Cochin where the acceptance form was signed between Madhu S. Nair, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of, CSL and the Commanding Officer (Designate) of the vessel Commodore Vidhyadhar Harke, VSM.
A statement from CSL said the vessel is scheduled to be commissioned and inducted into the services of the Indian Navy and the country in August this year.
Largest warship
The IAC is the largest warship ever to be built in India having a deep displacement of approximately 45,000 tonnes and is also considered the most ambitious warship project of the country.
“It is unprecedented in terms of size and complexity in comparison with any ship (both commercial and defence) built in India till date,” the official release said.
The vessel is a mammoth steel structure of 21,500 tonnes of special grade steel developed indigenously and used in Indian Naval Ships for the first time.
The enormity of the vessel can be gauged from the approximate 2300 kms of cabling, 120 kms of piping and over 2300 compartments available onboard.
The vessel is powered by four gas turbines in a COGAG (Combined Gas and Gas) propulsion configuration.
The IAC is equipped with numerous high-end technologies including network centric distributed data processing & control systems, intricate Aviation Facility Complex, the state-of-the-art weapons and sensors and also has one of the most powerful propulsion and power generation & distribution (PGD) systems to be installed onboard any ship.
The basic design of the IAC has been developed indigenously by the Directorate of Naval Design of the Indian Navy, and the entire detailed engineering, construction and system integration was undertaken by Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL).
The shipyard carried out the detailed engineering of the ship using advanced software, which enabled the designer to get a complete 3D view of the compartments of the ship.
It is the first time in the country that a ship of the size of an Aircraft Carrier is completely modelled in 3D and production drawings extracted from the 3D model.
India joins ‘elite club’
The ship was launched on August12, 2013 and with this, India joined the elite club of nations in the world capable of indigenously designing and constructing an Aircraft Carrier.
In spite of the various teething problems due to its complexity, the launching of the ship of this size in about 3 years’ time from keel laying was considered a creditable achievement even by International Standards.
Considering its complexity and developmental nature, the project was executed under three different phases of contract. The last phase contract was signed in October 2019.
The maiden sea trials of the vessel were conducted in August 2021 and subsequently the vessel proceeded and successfully completed another four phases of sea trials.
