BHEL bites into N-pie

BHEL's R&D is working on developing turbine blades and other components for nuke reactors, reports Ashok Das.

With the nuclear power sector expected to get a big boost in the wake of the Indo-US Nuclear deal, the public sector BHEL is gearing up to catch a piece of the action.

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The Corporate Research and Development of BHEL is currently working on developing turbine blades and other critical components for nuclear reactors.

"We would develop turbine blades - where we face competition from Siemens, etc - and other critical components to meet the demands in the sector," Group General Manager, SK Goyal, said.

BHEL's R&D department has notched up another major success by mastering the technology to manufacture 800 MW super critical thermal power sets in the country.

"We are fully prepared to build thermal plants of 800 mw size based on super critical parameters by adopting the technology to suit Indian conditions. We are expecting to get orders for eight such super critical power sets," Goyal said.

Given the thrust on developing new technologies and increased competition from global majors like Siemens, Alstom, the research budget of the &D division has been hiked from Rs 149 crore in the last fiscal to Rs 200 crore.

The CIMAR will focus on computer integrated manufacturing, radio frequency identification (RFID) as well as development of remote operated vehicles with the support of Information Technology.

During the year, the Corporate R&D also filed 84 patents, developed new products in solar water heating, fuel cells and simulation software for power plants.