Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 30

After decades of sustained deployment in some of the highest operational areas in the world, the Army is now exploring the feasibility of developing hybrid vehicles for use in high altitude areas to overcome the problems of degraded performance and high attrition that combustion engines face due to extreme cold and rarified air.

Army Design Bureau (ADB), the nodal agency dealing with the project, has flagged the issue for urgent redressal by the industry or research institutes as there is effective means to mitigate the problem as yet. ADB is the repository of all technical know-how for the Army and is the interface between government and private establishments for design, development and innovations.

At present, special grade fuel and oil is being used in high altitude areas, but these are not very effective during peak winters from November to March, often leading to vehicles becoming off-road.

Many areas where the Army is deployed — Ladakh, Kargil, Lahaul and Spiti, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh — experience sub-zero temperatures for several months in a year.

The engine horse power of conventional vehicles drops considerably in high altitude areas due to lack of air density and pressure. Further, due to extreme low temperature fuel and oil freeze or their viscosity increase, thereby affecting flow through the engine hoses or blocking injectors and filters increasing the risk of seizure, according to an Army engineer. Lubrication of engines and other moving parts is also affected, leading to frequent change of parts.

Hybrid vehicles with dual power source can overcome such problems as electric drive achieves greater efficiency in stop and go mission profiles as compared to conventional engines. The regenerative braking resources stores power as electrical energy resulting in greater fuel efficiency and an electric motor can generate instantaneous power for better off road maneuvering, engineers said.

Hybrid vehicles are a relatively new concept in India that is available in some passenger cars, but it is restricted to start and stop functions rather than drive power. The US Army is also said to be developing hybrid vehicles.