The Hyderabad-based ASL is an ancillary laboratory of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). It conducts research work for various DRDO programmes, including the missile programme. It has sanctioned Rs 1.261 crore for the project, which will be completed within the next three years by the nano-technology cell of the institute, said A B Samaddar, Director of MNNIT.

Carbon nanotube (CNT) composites are micro in size, ultra light in weight but very strong materials. The properties will be tested both with computational and experimental methods.

Dr Mukul Shukla of the institute’s mechanical engineering department, who is in-charge of the project, said that owing to their high tensile power and the capacity of surviving in high temperature, CNT-based polymers could be used in the structure of the missiles.

Missiles sometimes suffer from serious problems of structural failure due to the emission of enormous heat released during their launch.

Shukla said that CNTs are a form of carbon with a nanostructure that can have a length-to-diameter ratio greater than 1,000,000. These cylindrical carbon molecules have novel properties that make them potentially useful in many applications in nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science.

These materials exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties, and are efficient conductors of heat.