Future Landscape of Structural Materials in India

This book provides a perspective on the research, development, and manufacturing aspects of structural materials in India. The contents highlight materials to strengthen technology advancements in sectors like aerospace, defense, automotive, energy, health, and ICT.

With the momentum of the ‘Make in India’ initiative, India has seen an increase in manufacturing of advanced components for these sectors. The vast field of materials covers a whole gamut including structural materials such as metals like steel, aluminum, titanium, polymers, glass, cement and composites; functional materials such photovoltaics, and smart materials are also discussed.

This anthology focuses on structural materials and studies, in particular, the Indian landscape of manufacturing capability, R&D capability and status of advanced structural materials compared to the rest of the world. This study highlights the gaps and suggests necessary actions in the national landscape of structural materials, given the pull that will come from the burgeoning advanced components manufacturing over the next 10-15 years. The scope of this study is limited to structural materials covering metals and alloys, structural polymers, cement, glass, composites and high temperature ceramics. The contents of this book will be useful to researchers, industry professionals, and policy makers alike.

Dr. Debashish Bhattacharjee completed Ph.D. in Materials Science & Metallurgy from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 1993. He joined Tata Steel R&D in 1996 and headed the R&D function as Chief Research & Development and Scientific Services between 2002 and 2009. In 2009, he was seconded to Tata Steel Europe, based in the Netherlands, as Group Director Research, Development & Technology for the Tata Steel Group. Dr. Bhattacharjee’s expertise lies in the development of materials and associated technologies. He leads steel-related technology development in Carbon Capture and Usage, Generation of cheap, green Hydrogen, Utilisation of low grade Raw Materials and Materials for Mobility of the Future. He is also responsible for setting up new businesses in materials beyond steel – in Composites, Graphene and Medical Materials. He has more than 50 international peer-reviewed journal publications and 20 patents. He is Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and the Indian Institute of Metals (IIM). He has received the Metallurgist of the Year Award by Govt of India in 2004 and IIM Tata Gold Medal in 2021. He has been Visiting Professor at Imperial College London, University of Warwick, and University of Science and Technology, Beijing, China. Currently, he is Vice President, Technology & New Materials Business, Tata Steel, based in Kolkata.

Dr. Shantanu Chakrabarti graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Jadavpur University in 1972 and got his M.Sc. and Ph.D. (1983) in Applied Energy from Cranfield University, UK. On return to India, he worked in Wellman Incandescent India Ltd in their Furnace division before joining Tata Steel in 1989, where he worked in the Energy & Economy department and Cold Rolling Mill, retiring finally in 2011, as Head, Research Applications, R & D. He was the winner of the International Innovista prize in 2009, as part of a team, for a project on Nano-fluid cooling. He was also an INAE Distinguished Visiting Professor at IIT Kharagpur (2011–2016) and also a member of the Academic Review Committee for IIT, Kanpur in 2014. Dr. Chakrabarti served as the Technical Editor of the volume Metals & Materials as a part of the VISION 2035 document (2016) published by the DST. He also edited the volume, How Technology Evolved in Tata Steel- the 50-year Narrative for Tata Steel (2017). Currently he is a honorary Visiting Scientist for DRDO, in their DMSRDE unit at Kanpur.