Hindustan Construction, Alstom jointly bag Rs 1,843 crore project in Uttarakhand

The joint venture of construction major Hindustan Construction Company ( HCC )) and Alstom has been awarded a contract worth Rs 1,843 crore to construct Tehri pumped storage plant in Uttarakhand.

"This is an engineering, procurement and construction contract wherein HCC's share is Rs.701 crore," the company said in a regulatory filing. The project for the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation India Ltd is to be completed in 54 months.

Under the project, the company has to construct head race tunnel, surge shaft, penstocks, underground powerhouse, ventilation system gallery, bus bar gallery and cavern, drainage gallery, access adits and tail race tunnel.

The Tehri pump storage project (PSP) comprises of four reversible pump turbine units of 250 MW each. The operation of Tehri PSP is based on the concept of recycling of water discharged between upper reservoir and lower reservoir.

The Tehri Dam reservoir will function as the upper reservoir and Koteshwar reservoir as the lower balancing reservoir.

'Super sand' to help clean up dirty drinking water

The technology could help improve access to clean water in developing countries

Contaminated water can be cleaned much more effectively using a novel, cheap material, say researchers.

Dubbed "super sand", it could become a low-cost way to purify water in the developing world.

The technology involves coating grains of sand in an oxide of a widely available material called graphite - commonly used as lead in pencils.

The team describes the work in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces.
In many countries around the world, access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities is still limited.

The World Health Organization states that "just 60% of the population in Sub-Saharan African and 50% of the population in Oceania [islands in the tropical Pacific Ocean] use improved sources of drinking-water."

The graphite-coated sand grains might be a solution - especially as people have already used sand to purify water since ancient times.

Coating the sand
But with ordinary sand, filtering techniques can be tricky.

According to Dr Wei Gao from Rice university in Texas,  that regular coarse sand was a lot less effective than fine sand when water was contaminated with pathogens, organic contaminants and heavy metal ions.

While fine sand is slightly better, water drains through it very slowly.

"Our product combines coarse sand with functional carbon material that could offer higher retention for those pollutants, and at the same time gives good throughput," explained Dr Gao.

She said that the technique the team has developed to make the sand involves dispersing graphite oxide into water and mixing it with regular sand.

"We then heat the whole mixture up to 105C for a couple of hours to evaporate the water, and use the final product - 'coated sand' - to purify polluted water."
Cost-efficient

"Super sand" is made using regular sand - and it could become a low-cost way to purify water

The lead scientist of the study, Professor Pulickel Ajayan, said it was possible to modify the graphite oxide in order to make it more selective and sensitive to certain pollutants - such as organic contaminants or specific metals in dirty water.

Another team member, Dr Mainak Majumder from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, said it had another advantage - it was cheap.

"This material demonstrates comparable performance to some commercially available activated carbon materials," he said.

"But given that this can be synthesized using room temperature processes and also from cheap graphite sources, it is likely to be cost-efficient."

He pointed out that in Australia many mining companies extract graphite and they produce a lot of graphite-rich waste.

"This waste can be harnessed for water purification," he said.

China aiming to be world's civil engineer

With govt's financial power behind them, Chinese companies are winning projects

(SHANGHAI) China, in its continual move up the global economic value chain - from cheap toys to Apple iPads to commercial jetliners - now aims to be the world's civil engineer.

A force to be reckoned with: Showcase projects like the Three Gorges Dam (above) have helped Chinese companies win infrastructure contracts overseas

On the reputation of showcase projects like Beijing's Olympic-size airport terminal and the mammoth hydroelectric Three Gorges Dam, Chinese companies have been hired to build copper mines in the Congo, high-speed rail lines in Brazil and huge apartment complexes in Saudi Arabia.


In New York City alone, Chinese companies have won contracts to help renovate the subway system, refurbish the Alexander Hamilton Bridge over the Harlem River and build a new Metro-North train platform near Yankee Stadium.


As with the Bay Bridge, US union labour would carry out most of the work done on American soil.


American steelworker unions have disparaged the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge contract by accusing the state of California of sending good jobs overseas and settling for what they deride as poor-quality Chinese steel.


Industry groups in the US and other countries have raised questions about the safety and quality of Chinese workmanship on such projects. Indeed, China has had quality control problems ranging from tainted milk to poorly built schools.


But executives and officials who have awarded the various Chinese contracts say their audits have convinced them of the projects' engineering integrity.


And they note that with the full financial force of the Chinese government behind its infrastructure companies, the monumental scale of the work, and the prices bid are hard for private industry elsewhere to beat.


At US$7.2 billion, the Bay Bridge will be one of the most expensive structures ever built. But California officials estimate that they will save at least US$400 million by having so much of the work done in China.
China, the world's biggest steel maker, was the front-runner, particularly because it has dominated bridge building for the last decade. Several years ago, Shanghai opened a 32km sea bridge; the country is now planning a much longer one near Hong Kong.


The selection of the state-owned Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company was a surprise, though, because the company made port cranes and had no bridge building experience.


Zhenhua put 3,000 employees to work on the project: steel-cutters, welders, polishers and engineers. The company built the main bridge tower, which was shipped in mid-2009, and a total of 28 bridge decks - the massive triangular steel structures that will serve as the roadway platform.


Pan Zhongwang, a 55-year-old steel polisher, is a typical Zhenhua worker. He arrives at 7am and leaves at 11pm, often working seven days a week. He lives in a company dormitory and earns about US$12 a day.


'It used to be US$9 a day, now it's US$12,' he said last Wednesday morning, while polishing one of the decks for the new Bay Bridge. 'Everything is getting more expensive. They should raise our pay.'


To ensure the bridge meets safety standards, 250 employees and consultants working for the state of California and American Bridge/Fluor also took up residence in Shanghai.

Top Construction Companies in India

Here is the list of top construction companies in India on the basis of their tie-ups with their international counterparts, technological advancements, generating money from the market to trigger their expansion plans and for establishing an entire township in the wastelands and making it the hottest commercial destination.

·         Larsen & Toubro: It is India's biggest construction organization. Supported by its equally proficient allied sectors, the Engineering, Construction and Contracts Division of L&T provides EPC solutions on concept and expenses which could be incurred while performing engineering and infrastructure projects on large scale. L&T's ECC department carry out large scale projects entailing ground-breaking design and wide-ranging construction services ranging from procurement, furnishing, fitting, testing and commissioning. L&T is known for its excellence and timely deliverance. With an annual turnover of Rs 25,000 crore, L&T has more 12,000 skilled professional working for it.

·         DLF: DLF's chief business is to develop housing, marketable and retail properties. Currently it has undertaken the development of 70 million sq ft of housing projects which it intends to finish in the next three years. DLF has joined hands with Delhi Development Authority to develop townships in Amritsar, Pune, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Chennai and Goa. DLF has been the construction company behind different malls in Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Kochi and Chennai. The company is also developing 50-75 hotels along with Hilton Hotels and infrastructure and SEZ in India in collaboration with Laing O'Rourke (UK). 

·         Tata Projects: Tata Projects registered an annual turnover of Rs 2,300 crore on July 1, 2007. With more than 1,500 professionals the company has emerged as one of the chief player in EPC projects. Over the last four years, it has attained a CAGR of 50 per cent which quadrupled its annual turnover of 2006-07. Tata Projects functions in concentrated divisions like broadcast and distribution, steel, power production, oil, gas and hydrocarbons and industrial infrastructure through its five strategic business units (SBU)

·         Gammon India: With an annual turnover of more than Rs 7,010 crore, Gammon India is famously known as 'Builders to the Nation'. It is the one and only construction firm in India to get an ISO 9001 authorization for its operational sectors in civil engineering and has successfully carried out diverse civil engineering operations some of which include constructing one of the longest river bridge in Asia at Patna across the Ganges and the longest bridge in India across river Jadukata.

·         Hindustan Construction Company: The Company has a reputation of performing large-scale infrastructure projects besides developing hi-tech construction equipments. It has carried out a number of challenging and expensive projects in sectors like oil and gas pipeline, power, urban infrastructure, transportation, irrigation and water supply, etc. HCC has also acquired projects in countries like Iraq, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Bhutan and Sri Lanka. It was the first Indian firm to execute and sustain an integrated quality administration structure and has an annual turnover of more than Rs 2,394.50 crore. 

·         Sobha Developers Ltd: With an annual turnover of Rs 1,189 crore, Sobha Developers Ltd was initiated by the now chairman PNC Menon in the year 1995. On June 30, 2007, the company has 3,706 skilled professionals working for it. At present it owns Rs 3,500-acre land in eight Indian cities namely Coimbatore, Bangalore, Mysore, Chennai, Thrissur, Kochi, Pune and Hosur. The company's clientele include some of the top players in IT, hotel and construction sector such as Hewlett Packard, Mico, Infosys, Ramaraju Developers, Dell, Timken, etc.

·         Shapoorji Pallonji & Co: The Company has more than 3,500 professionals working for it and is largely driven by its loyalty to consumer satisfaction. Some of the major projects undertaken by Shapoorji Pallonji & Co are World Trade Centre, Mumbai; TELCO industrial complex, Pune; Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Kalpakkam; HSBC Bank, Mumbai; Hotel Taj Intercontinental, Mumbai; Bank of India, Mumbai; Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, etc. the company has created magnum opus of construction and has been a consistent executer of challenging projects.

·         Unitech: Recently Ramesh Chandra, Unitech's Chairman has declared the investment of $ 720 million by his company in the coming four years to develop 28 hotels along with Marriott International. Its chief activities include construction, expansion of real-estate, consultancy in associated sectors, hotels, electrical broadcast and information technology.

·         Nagarjuna Construction Company: The Company has a track record of more than 28 years and is structured in nine business categories including housing, water and environment, irrigation, transportation, oil and gas, electrical, metals, real estate and power. It has an annual turnover of Rs 7,300 crore and plays an active role in developing BOT road projects, seaports, BOOT hydropower projects, etc.

·         Punj Lloyd: Crowned as 'all-terrain specialists', Punj Lloyd is one of the biggest Indian engineering construction firms. The company performs its operations in Asia Pacific, China, Middle East, Europe, Africa, South Asia and Caspian. It provides services ranging from engineering to project administration, innovative designs to construction, to eminent clients like Petroleum Development Oman, British Petroleum, Pertamina, Shell, ADNOC, Cairn Energy, etc.

List of Theory and Practical subject for 5th semester GEU civil engineering

Theory  

THM 501  Industrial Economics & Principles of Management 

T.N Chabra

TCE 501  Structural Analysis II 

Ramamurthan,Reddy,A.K Jain

TCE 502  Concrete Structure I 

Ramamurthan,A.K.Jain

TCE 503  Transportation Engineering I

Khanna and Justo

 

TCE 504  Geotechnical Engineering I  

B.C.Punamia,Gopal Ranjan

Labs

PCE 501  Structural Analysis Lab. 

PCE 502  Concrete Lab. 

PCE 503  Transportation Engineering Lab.  

SCE 501  SEMINAR* 

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World's Most Dangerous Airports

 

The most dangerous airports in the world, from offshore airports in japan to ice covered ones in Antartica to an airport which has a road that runs through it in Gibraltar!

 

Lukla Airport Nepal

 Since Lukla Nepal is the place most people start their Mount Everest trek, this Himalayan strip gets quite a bit of traffic--mostly to and from Kathmandu.

Sirens inform folks for miles when an airplane is landing here, and as you would suspect, only helicopters and Twin Otter type planes can handle the 2,000 foot, uphill runway that is fenced off at the end, to protect you from the edge of a mountain cliff.

 Kansai International Airport

Osaka, Japan

Land is a scarce resource in Japan, so engineers headed roughly 3 miles offshore into Osaka Bay to build this colossal structure. Work on the manmade island started in 1987, and by 1994 jumbo jets were touching down. Travelers can get from the airport to the main island of Honshu via car, railroad or even a high-speed ferry.

Gibraltar Airport

Between Morocco and Spain sits the tiny British territory of Gibraltar. Construction of the airport dates back to World War II, and it continues to serve as a base for the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force, though commercial flights land on a daily basis.

Madeira International Airport

Madeira, Portugal

Madeira is a small island far off the coast of Portugal, which makes an airport that is capable of landing commercial-size aircraft vital to its development. This airport's original runway was only about 5000 feet long, posing a huge risk to even the most experienced pilots and limiting imports and tourism.

Ice Runway

Antarctica

The Ice Runway is one of three major airstrips used to haul supplies and researchers to Antarctica's McMurdo Station. As its name implies, there are no paved runways here—just long stretches of ice and snow that are meticulously groomed.

There is no shortage of space on the Ice Runway, so super-size aircraft like the C-130 Hercules and the C-17 Globemaster III can land with relative ease. The real challenge is making sure that the weight of the aircraft and cargo doesn't bust the ice or get the plane stuck in soft snow. As the ice of the runway begins to break up, planes are redirected to Pegasus Field or Williams Field, the two other airstrips servicing the continent.

Congonhas Airport

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Most major cities have an airport, but rarely are they built just 5 miles from the city center, especially in metropolises like Sao Paulo. Congonhas' close proximity to downtown can be attributed in part to the fact that it was completed in 1936, with the city experiencing rapid development in the following decades.

Courchevel International Airport

Courchevel, France

Getting to the iconic ski resort of Courchevel requires navigating the formidable French Alps before making a hair-raising landing at Courchevel International Airport. The runway is about 1700 feet long, but the real surprise is the large hill toward the middle of the strip.

Princess Juliana International Airport

Simpson Bay, Saint Maarten

Nothing says fun in the sun like roaring engines and the smell of jet exhaust. Landing on this Caribbean island forces pilots to fly over a small strip of beach, clear a decent-size fence and pass over a road just before hitting the runway.

Svalbard Airport

Svalbard, Norway

Svalbard is a cluster of Norwegian islands sitting in the Arctic Ocean. While there are three airports within the archipelago, two of which are used mainly to transport miners, Svalbard Airport is open to commercial travel, making it the world's northernmost airport that tourists can book tickets to.

Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport

Saba, Netherlands Antilles

Getting to this paradise-like island can be a bit distressing thanks to a 1300-foot-long runway, slightly longer than most aircraft carrier runways.

L&T signs Rs 2,600 crore agreement with NHAI

Construction and engineering major Larsen and Toubro (L&T) Wednesday said that its subsidiary, Larsen and Toubro Infrastructure Development Projects Limited (L&TIDPL), has signed a Rs 2,600 crore concession agreement with the National Highways Authority of India ( NHAI )).

The agreement is for four-laning of the 244 km of NH14 between Beawar and Pindwara in Rajasthan.

"The estimated project cost is about Rs.2,600 crore and the project is scheduled to be completed in 30 months. It will be executed on BOT (build operate transfer) DBFO (design, build, finance and operate) basis, with a concession period of 23 years," the company said in a regulatory filing.

With this project, L&T currently has 16 projects in its BOT roads portfolio, of which seven are at present in operational phase, eight in construction phase and this project is entering the development phase, thus cumulating in a length of 6,700 km and total length of 1,461 km.

The total project book size stands at Rs.15,800 crore.

The making of an engineering marvel

The 1.3-km railway bridge over Chenab will be world's highest

When completed in 2016, the 1.3-km railway bridge over the Chenab will soar 359 meters above the river bed, 19 meters higher than France’s Tarn River bridge

Taking shape in Reasi, Jammu’s oldest district, is a mammoth next-generation technological marvel. When completed in 2016, it will be the highest-ever railway bridge in the world — a project in which a highly-skilled team of engineers, of both Indian and foreign origin, is involved.

 The “sky-bridge”, as it is often called, is being constructed on the Chenab River upstream of the Salai dam between the villages of Bakkal and Kauri. The 1.3-km-long bridge is a part of the 73-km-long Katra-Dharam section of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project being executed to provide rail connectivity to the Kashmir valley.


The bridge will soar 359 meters over the river bed, six times the height of the Panvalnadi bridge in Maharashtra (the tallest so far in India), more than five times the height of the Qutub Minar and 35 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. At present, the world’s tallest rail bridge is on France’s Tarn River, with its tallest pillar rising 340 meters.


TEAM 

Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd (KRCL), a public sector enterprise under the railway ministry, is executing the Rs 512 crore project for Northern Railway. Rajesh Tripathi, director (way & works) of KRCL, is controlling the Jammu & Kashmir project, of which the bridge is a part. Tripathi, 50, a civil engineer by training, is an officer of the Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRSE). Attached to his name is an unending list of qualifications and experience.

Some of the positions held by Tripathi in the past include those of project director in IRCON for Malaysia, executive director to the minister of state for railways, director (works) and director (track modernisation) in the railway ministry. Tripathi is a member of the Indian Institute of Bridge Engineers and has undergone specialised training in operation and maintenance of heavy haulage tracks in the US and Canada and special courses on track machines at Indian Railway Institute of Civil Engineers (IRICEN), Pune. He has been honoured with various awards and merit certificates by the government for “individual efficiency and commendable service”.

After Tripathi, supervising the project on the site is KRCL’s general manager (projects), Rajesh Agarwal, another civil engineer, trained at an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and an officer of the railway’s engineering service. Agarwal has been brought on deputation from KRCL especially for the J&K project. He is assisted by Mudit Bhatnagar, chief engineer (bridges) and P S Gupta, chief engineer (design). Bhatnagar is an officer of the 1988 batch of the IRSE, on deputation for the bridge project.


While KRCL is the executing agency, the bridge is being designed and constructed by Chenab Bridge Project Undertaking – a joint venture (JV) between AFCONS, Ultra Construction and Engineering Company of South Korea, and VSL India. The JV has further appointed two design consultants — WSP Consulting Kortes of Finland for bridge viaducts and foundations, and Leonhardt Andra & Partner of Germany for the main steel arch.

“In addition, a proof consultant from the UK has been appointed to re-verify the designs. Overall, it is a huge team of engineers, contractors and foreign consultants working on the project,” said a senior executive from KRCL. Explaining the logic behind heavy involvement of foreign companies, the executive, directly involved in the project work, said, “We found that the consultants and contractors for this kind of work available in India had only theoretical knowledge with minimum experience.”
Procuring highly skilled professionals for a project being built in challenging terrain, too, is not easy. “It is difficult to retain specialised people for such a project. So, we provide extra incentives and bonuses for our engineers associated with the project,” said D K Kunnar, senior vice president (projects) of AFCONS. At least 40 engineers of the company are deployed at the work site for the bridge project. “This is in addition to the foreign experts who keep visiting. The detailed design of the bridge has undergone many consultations,” Kunnar said.


BRIDGE DESIGN
The design of the 1.3-km-long bridge is divided into three segments — a 467-meter steel arch in the centre, a 185-meter approach deck from the Bakkal end and a 650-meter approach deck from the Kauri end. While the bridge will emerge from single track tunnels on both sides, it has been designed to accommodate a double track. Overall, the bridge will span 11 concrete and five steel pillars.

The construction, being carried out in geologically sensitive terrain, is testing the engineering and project skills of the executing team. What makes the project site conditions unique are strong winds that at times blow at speeds that exceed 266 kilometer per hour (kmph), location of the site in a highly active seismic zone, possibility of terrorist attacks and continuous monitoring.

It is not a surprise, therefore, that experts from as many as 15 prime Indian agencies -- including the IITs; Indian Institute of Science (IISC); Research, Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO); Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) -- and an equal number of foreign contractors are grappling with the daunting task of erecting the mega bridge.

“The paint being used for the bridge is being procured from Japan. It has been approved by the RDSO and can withstand weather extremes for 35 years, as compared to five years for which a normal paint lasts. With a project of this magnitude, everything we do becomes a world-record,” a KRCL executive said.