India’s first indigenous state-of-the-art ‘Manned Chamber Welding’ MCW shop was inaugurated at HAL’s Koraput(Sonabeda)facilities in Odisha by Jitendra Singh, the Minister of State for Defence on Thursday, May 19th, 2013. This makes India the second country in the world after Russia.

HAL Chairman Dr. R K Tyagi handed over the symbol of ‘robotic argon chamber’ dedicated to the nation to the Minister in the presence of the Defence Production Secretary R K Mathur.

The Indian equipment was developed indigenously by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with the help of other vendors. The Indian MCW system at HAL is unique that it offers both robotic and human (manual) welding in argon atmosphere. Russia and India are the only 2 countries having this facility with the Russian welding process being carried our manually.

In this robotic system, HAL does welding of 17 major modules of Sukhoi engine. The entire outer casing module of the engine is welded inside this chamber. The welder working inside has all life support and health maintaining features.