IIT Madras and US firm General Electric on Thursday announced establishing an “Expanded Gas Turbine Combustor Testing Facility” at the National Centre for Combustion Research and Development (NCCRD) in the institute, saying this was the first such facility to come up in an academic institution globally.
The state-of-the-art facility is among few such facilities worldwide that can test combustor designs in realistic operating conditions, a release from the premier institute said.
NCCRD is an IIT Madras research centre that undertakes research on automotive, thermal power and aerospace propulsion, fire research and micro-gravity combustion.
The testing facility was inaugurated on Thursday in the presence of Alok Nanda, CEO, GE India Technology Centre and CTO-GE South Asia; Vikram Reddy, General Manager, Engineering, India, GE Aviation, and Prof. V Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras among others, it said.
The facility will enable IIT Madras researchers to further their research in high-pressure combustion. It will help professors and research scholars to work on high-pressure combustion.
This facility will lead to further understanding the combustion physics and cultivation of a talent pool in the field of gas turbine research, the release said.
Nanda described the gas turbine combustion testing facility as a “national asset.”
Prof. Kamakoti said that for the last 20 years, IIT Madras has been focusing on building “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” (self-reliant India) projects.
“The institution is requesting the General Electric to consider IIT Madras to be their top partner in the case of any academic venture that they are planning to have across the globe. Also, the institute has a vision to train more students from below poverty line, give them access to the facilities and make them competent for the industry standards,” he said.
New combustor design concepts are already being tested and some of these designs may reach the market in the near future. This facility can also be a stepping stone for start-ups involved in combustion related product development, the release said.
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