Keynote Speech: Sustainable Construction Basic Practice – Strategy, Challenges, Importance Benefits and Positive Impact

Sustainable construction is the process of constructing structures while being environmentally conscious of the material, design process, and sustainability of the structure and the effect it has on the environment. In simple terms, it is the process of creating structures in an environmentally friendly way. Sustainability factors are considered in the design, material, longevity, and future deconstruction as the main aspects. Also, to determine what is “allowed” and what may deem “disallowed”. The basic six sustainable practices / principles are optimizing site potential, sustainable energy use, protect and conserve water, optimizing material usage and building space, effective operational and maintenance practices and enhancing indoor environmental quality.

Evaluation of Dispute Prone Areas in Construction Projects

Construction projects experience claims and disputes due to increased complexity of contract documentation, which subsequently affects the cost performance of projects. Majority of the previous studies on disputes and cost overrun have mainly focused on finding the causes of cost overrun or disputes in the industry. Identification of dispute prone areas and the associated range of cost overrun due to the disputes are less explored. Previous research findings indicate that the various factors resulting in cost overrun itself are the causes of disputes. It is necessary to understand, assess and take appropriate actions for increasing the predictability of claims and disputes in order to improve the cost performance of construction projects. In this study, an attempt is made to identify and prioritize the dispute prone areas in Indian construction projects by analytical hierarchy process (AHP).

Continuous flow electrocoagulation system for the treatment of coir industry wastewater

Coir industry, a prominent industry in Kerala, uses huge amount of water and chemical reagents for its functioning. The effluent from these industries has high BOD, COD, toxic chemicals, oils and grease etc. Of the various pollutants, synthetic dyes are the most concerning. Electrocoagulation has advantages over other systems, as it doesn’t produce any secondary pollutants. In this study, a continuous flow electrocoagulation reactor is designed and operational parameters like flow rate, voltage, pH, electrolyte concentration, dye concentration and electrode orientation are optimized. The influence of these parameters are assessed by measuring colour removal efficiency (CRE) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). The optimum flow, voltage, electrolyte concentration, pH and electrode orientation were 1000 mL/hr., 8V, 1000 mg/L, 7 and parallel respectively. The optimized parameters were used for performance evaluation of the system in treating coir industry wastewater. Under these optimized conditions, colour removal efficiency, turbidity, pH, COD removal efficiency and BOD removal efficiency for the treated coir industry wastewater was found as 92.17%, 25 NTU, 8.7, 95.49%, and 92.20% respectively.

Pedestrian Flow and Capacity Analysis at Railway Stations

Enormous growth of population has been observed in recent years and the number of passengers is traveling by the Indian railway has been increased significantly during the pilgrim season due to rapid urbanization. Pedestrian traffic is an important aspect of traffic handled by the Indian railways, because of competitive tariffs with other modes of transports, the comfort of travel, and speed of connectivity. The present study is carried out in the Kerala state railway stations under the categories of A1(NSG2), and A (NSG3) which has the highest annual passenger of boarding and alighting are recorded. Pedestrian flows are taken with the help of recorded video graphic footage on the railway station premises. The studies carried out in the pedestrian parameters and estimate the capacity of pedestrian flow involve a variety of pedestrians such as era, sexuality, belongings carried by the pedestrian, schedule of a train as well at entry and exit passageway of stairways with the help of Indo-HCM 2017 and NFPA 130, 2020 also to analyses the level of service of a pedestrian with the fundamental diagrams of the pedestrian flow vs speed, speed vs density, flow vs density, and space vs speed are developed. The discoveries of this study are expected to be fruitful for civic bodies, railway protection force, policymakers, the public, and other stakeholders to design a solution working on the idea of world elegance railway stations.

A Review on the Mechanisms and Analysis of Fatigue in Ductile Materials

In civil engineering, fatigue can be referred to as the loss in structural performance of engineering components when subjected to repeated cyclic loads. Fatigue is identified as one of the leading factors that determines the lifespan of an engineering structure. Fatigue develops in the form of small and localized cracks which gradually propagates subcritically until the engineering component is structurally incapable to satisfy the serviceability conditions and ultimately fails. Due to the engineering importance of the phenomenon, fatigue is studied extensively in order to obtain a better understanding of the phenomenon and its manifestation in different engineering components. Over the years a number of mechanisms and models have been developed in order to explain, analyze and predict the effects of the phenomenon on various components. The three key factors that have been identified to have influenced the fatigue life of engineering components include the material properties of the engineering component, the geometry of the engineering component and the load pattern to which the engineering component is subjected. This paper aims to give a brief and consolidated overview of the various mechanisms, the different models and the influence of the various factors on the fatigue performance of components composed of ductile materials.

A Review on Seismic Issues and Remedies in High-Rise Structures

The increase in population in urban areas have popularised high rise structures, as a means of accommodating more people in a limited area. The major concerns in the designing and construction of high-rise structures are the safety aspects against wind and earthquake forces, as the collapse of the structure can lead to a disaster. The seismic zoning map of India shows that a large area of India is prone to earthquakes. The growing use of high strength and lightweight materials in high-rise structures makes them more flexible and lightly damped, thereby making these structures more sensitive to dynamic excitations. Presence of irregularities, setbacks, open ground story, weak and soft storeys, also increases the seismic vulnerability of high-rise structures. Vertical ground shaking can be of significant concern in terms of amplification of acceleration along the height of the building, and also, achieving vertical isolation had been challenging as the gravitational load must be sustained by the isolation system. Quasi-Zero stiffness system was found to be effective in vertical isolation of structures. Installing damping devices at optimal locations, base isolation systems, and suitable seismic retrofitting strategies can enhance the seismic performance of structures. This paper reviews the various factors that lead to seismic issues in high-rise structures such as size, shape, configuration, structural aspects, and material properties. The appropriate remedies to address the seismic issues are also reviewed.

A Review on Residual Life Assessment of Plain and Reinforced Concrete Members

Under fatigue loading, concrete like quasi-brittle materials exhibit softening behaviour since an inelastic zone will be formed in front of the crack tip called the fracture process zone (FPZ). There are various toughening mechanisms that exhibiting in this region. Current design practices for reinforced concrete assumes a zero tensile strength for concrete which is actually overly conservative. In fact, concrete can bear significant tensile stress and strain. Therefore, the tension softening response of RC member should consider in the study. Under fatigue loading, strength and stiffness decrease progressively according to the maximum amplitude and the number of cycles of loading. Fracture plays an important role in failure of normally and lightly reinforced beam. Since FPZ mechanisms and fibre bridging action resist crack propagation, we have to consider these mechanisms while assessing remaining life of RC member. Fatigue failure occurs when applied load is much less than the moment capacity. Such structures susceptible to fatigue load need to be monitored and residual life is to be predicted. This paper is presenting a review on the residual strength assessment on plain and reinforced concrete. The review includes the influence of various tension-softening models in predicting the residual life of plain and reinforced concrete. A comparative study is also conducted in order to assess the residual life by considering various tension softening laws.

Effect of variation of strain rate on the tensile properties of Coconut leaf midrib - A sustainable material for ground improvement

This paper aims at introducing a new natural fibers used as ground improvement material, which enables to improve the engineering properties of poor soil in an economical and sustainable manner. An investigation of extraction procedure of coconut leaf midrib has been undertaken. The study of tensile behavior of ground improvement material with different strain rate is very significant since, the small strain rate study simulates long term loading and large strain rate study simulates impact loading condition. The strain rate chosen for the present study were in terms of percentage of gauge length of specimen per minute. Moreover, the optimum strain rate and characteristic tensile strength of coconut leaf midrib was established by using Weibull parameters.

Experimental Study on the Impact of Type of Sulphate in Lime Stabilised Clays

Marine clays are distinguished by high compressibility and low shear strength. It has been reported that lime stabilisation is very much potent, and can be used as an ideal ground improvement technique in the case of marine clays. Cochin marine clays are sometimes abundant in primary and secondary sources of sulphates of sodium, lithium, potassium and calcium. Different types of sulphates may have different impact on lime stabilised clays. Present study investigates the effect of different types of sulphates in lime treated marine clays. Marine clay samples were collected by auger boring and all the physical properties were determined. Sulphate content in clay was also found. Clay samples were treated with 6% of lime and 4% of sodium sulphate, lithium sulphate and potassium sulphate and were kept for various curing periods of zero days, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months. Atterberg limits, free swell index, unconfined compressive strength and pH of all samples were determined. It was found that the plasticity and swelling characteristics of lime treated clay were influenced by the addition of sulphates. It was also found that all the three types of sulphates had detrimental effect on the gain in strength of lime stabilised soil. But the effect varies significantly with the type of sulphate present in the clay. This necessitates the importance of determination of the type sulphate present in the marine clay, before planning the soil stabilisation using lime.

A Review on the Significance of Integrated Transportation and Land Use Planning Model for the Planning of Urban Areas

Planning for transportation infrastructure takes significant role in development of urban areas. Proper planning is needed for eliminating the problems like overcrowding, housing shortage, congestion etc. So there is a need of integrating transportation and land use. Transportation planning and the land use planning have to be done together. Integrating transportation with land use helps to decrease travel length and need to travel. Mixed land use development is more suitable for the urban areas. This paper critically reviews the importance of Integrated Transportation and Land Use planning (ITLUP) model in the planning of urban areas and applying this model as a solution for most of the problems facing in urban areas by analysing the best practices. The review also focuses on the relationship between land use and transportation by examining the parameters of ITLUP model.