Indian Navy gets first Aircraft-Carrier Dry Dock

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the Indian Navy’s first Aircraft-Carrier Dry Dock in Mumbai, Maharashtra on 28 September 2019.

The Aircraft Carrier Dock (ACD) is the largest dock of the Indian Navy measuring 281 mtr in length, 45 mtr in breadth and 17 mtr in depth. The dock can accommodate the Indian Navy, aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya.

The ACD is also the first Indian dry dock built into the sea, unlike the conventional docks, which are built on the land, thereby conserving premium land space and providing the Navy with 0.5 km of crucial berthing space.

Thirty-eight caissons were used for construction of both dock walls, also known as Fitting-Out Berths (FOBs). The dock floor, having a thickness of 1.5 mtr, can safely hold ships of a tonnage up to 90,000 tonne.

The Director General of Naval Project (DGNP), Mumbai, awarded HCC the contract to construct the dry dock on 12 April 2010.  

The dry dock can dock multiple ships with varying docking periods by suitably positioning an Intermediate, or Lambda Gate weighing more than 40 tonne. For removal of water there are eight dewatering pumps; seven pumps in tandem can dewater the dock in 150 minutes.

The dry dock can hold 200 million ltr of water, more than 80 Olympic size swimming pools. Almost 8,000 mtr tonne of steel forms were used, equivalent in weight to that used for the Eiffel Tower.

Apart from this, over five lakh tonne of concrete in construction; which is equivalent to one and half times that used in the Bandra Worli Sea Link.

The dewatering pumps used in the project can each empty or fill a water tanker of 12,000 ltr within four seconds. The electric cables used in the project can stretch over a length of 90 km, and the piping used is over 13 km. The dock floor can carry a load of 700 tonne per sq mtr.