Particle.news
Download on the App Store
5 ARTICLES
·
last mo.

ISRO and NIOT Complete Human-Rated Sphere Weld for Matsya-6000 Deep-Sea Submersible

Third-party agencies have begun certifying the weld procedures to pave the way for crewed ocean dives.

The Matsya-6000 submersible is the centerpiece of the Samudrayaan mission. (Photo: NIOT)
Matsya-6000 deep-sea submersible | isro.gov.in
Image
Image

Overview

  • The 2.26-meter-diameter titanium alloy sphere features an 80 mm-thick wall engineered to withstand pressures up to 600 bar and temperatures down to –3 °C.
  • Engineers conducted more than 700 electron beam welding trials and upgraded their welding capacity from 15 kW to 40 kW to fuse 80–102 mm thick titanium plates.
  • A full-scale 7,100 mm-long weld was completed in 32 minutes, marking India’s first human-rated deep-sea titanium sphere weld.
  • Non-destructive evaluations employed a 7.5 MeV X-ray radiography facility alongside Time of Flight Diffraction and Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing to ensure structural integrity.
  • The Samudrayaan mission falls under the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ Deep Ocean Mission and aims to deploy the Matsya-6000 with a three-member crew to 6,000 meters by 2026.