Highway Research Record No. 39 - Indian Roads Congress

and Gujarat states; and design, construction and
performance evaluation of new materials and mixes
towards development and upgradation of standards /
specifications.
2. Geotechnical engineering
The projects reported in the Geotechnical Engineering
area relate to landslide Hazard Mitigation and
Management on Indian Roads and Highways, Site
Stabilization work, Use of jute geotextiles in PMGSY
roads to study efficacy of Jute Geotextile (JGT) and
utilization of various solid industrial wastes in road works.
Waste materials have been evaluated in the laboratory
as well in the field by constructing experimental test
sections. Performance observations are being taken up.
The issues related with road infrastructure development
in disaster prone areas have also received attention
of researchers. Early warning system for landslides
by simple and economical instrumentation like steel
pedestals and DGPS, design and construction of roads
in submerged/ flood affected areas of Rann of Kutch,
Gujarat, formulation of guidelines for road construction
in such areas have been reported. Design and
construction of embankments in waterlogged areas by
using fly ash, a novel construction methodology involving
back-dumping of pond ash directly into water pond
was also devised. CRRI- GTE Division is developing
a non nuclear, non destructive type of equipment for
determination of dry density of compacted soils.
Research work has been performed on soil stabilization
using commercially available materials, use of fly ash,
copper slag, cinder waste, and phosphogypsum in
subgrade and embankment construction. Based on
laboratory data, it was found that in case of all the four
types of soils as mentioned above, the unconfined
compressive strength of soil stabilized with 2, 4 and 6
Per cent cement gives higher strength as compared to
with 2, 4 and 6 Per cent commercial stabiliser for 7, 14
and 28 days curing period. The fly ash, bottom ash and
pond ash samples can be used in embankment and
road works. The study indicated that 10-15 Per cent of
fine aggregate can be replaced by super fine slag. The
optimum bitumen content was obtained as 4.8 Per cent
and 5.5 Per cent respectively for DBM and BC mixes. The
bituminous samples with superfine copper slag satisfied
the design requirements as per MORTH specifications.
A combination of waste recycled products and cinder
can satisfy density requirements of the materials for the
embankment construction. It was observed that both
deflection and roughness characteristics of copper slag
embankment was comparable to soil embankment. By
providing geo-textiles the CBR value of weaker sub
grades could be enhanced. Thereby, the pavement
layer thickness can be considerably reduced and this
facilitates the construction of roads in poor sub-grade
ROAD RESEARCH IN INDIA 2011-12 3
soil areas. SoilTech MK-III- engineered a SSB layer
with much more strength then WMM (a ideal base
course with more than 3000 Mpa strength). SoilTech
MK-III-economized the project substantially. The
ecological contribution of SoilTech MK-III used roads
is excellent and over 50% then the conventional crust
reducing man, machine and material consumption.
3. Bridge engineering
In this Chapter, the projects related to various aspects
of bridges such as structural health monitoring,
techniques for distress diagnostics, effect of corrosion on
performance, remaining life assessment, strengthening
techniques etc. are reported.
Most of these projects are useful for Bridge
Management, consisting of inventorization, condition
assessment of the existing bridge with the help of
inspection or NDTs, distress diagnostics, load carrying
capacity evaluation of existing bridges with the help
of analytical or experimental or a combination of both
considering an appropriate degradation model, loading
and environmental conditions, and choosing a suitable
rehabilitation and strengthening techniques. All these
aspects require in-depth knowledge, expertise as well
as technology for which research is being carried out
at a fast pace. Further, there is an immediate attention
required for effective implementation of BMS in our
country for prioritizing the maintenance of bridges in a
road network.
Indigenous design and development of tool for
inspection of bridges such as Mobile Bridge Inspection
Unit and Creation of Bridge Expansion Joint Test facility
are of great interest to professionals.
Also, the studies to assess the impact of noise and
vibration levels after construction of transportation
structure on built environment, their cause and remedial
measure needs to be well taken at the planning stage
of the infrastructure development.
4. Traffic & Transportation
4.1 planning and Management
Research works reported in the area of Traffic
Engineering, Transportation Planning and Management
were briefly summarised in this section. In this section
there are eight completed projects and eighteen
new projects were reported. In this area most of the
projects works were related to comprehensive traffic
and transportation studies, route network planning,
integration of Public Transportation, Urban speed
management using ITS technologies. The salient area
covered in this area are listed as follows: