Materials used in the manufacturing
Titanium Sponge:
Many of the critical components on the mission used alloys from titanium sponge produced by the Kerala Minerals and Metals (KMML) in Kollam.
KMML has a 500-tonne capacity titanium sponge plant at Chavara, Kollam, a joint venture with the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) and the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL).
The Titanium Sponge Plant located in Kerala, is the only one in the world which can undertake all the different activities of manufacturing aerospace grade titanium sponge under one roof.
The material is an alloy product which is produced through Kroll process which includes leaching or heated vacuum distillation to make the metal almost 99.7% pure.
The importance of establishing the Titanium Sponge Plant was realised keeping in view of the country's huge demand and import of titanium and magnesium alloys from countries like China, Russia and Japan.
India is the seventh country in the world to have such a complex structured TSP which has the technology to make titanium sponge and the first to have done all the process under one roof in indigenous manner.
The material produced by the plant is useful for liquid propellant tanks for launch vehicles, inter tank structures, gas bottle/liners and interface rings for satellites.
The most important properties of titanium are its low density and high level of corrosion resistance.
Although six times as expensive as steel.
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