CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN GEOTECHNICAL AND TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING

The Department of Civil Engineering at SRKR Engineering College, Bhimavaram was started in 1980 and is as old as the college itself. It has earned a reputation in the state of AP in general and in the coastal districts in particular, for its dedicated teaching and consultancy. While the department basically focuses on teaching, catering mainly to undergraduate Civil Engineering students and to a select section of post-graduate students in Structural Engineering, it also offers a substantial industrial consultancy in the areas of Structural Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering and Transportation Engineering.

However, due to recent national and international research thrust, the department has of late begun to consider research also seriously. As a result, a few faculty members obtained doctoral degrees, and a few more are pursuing them. The department is also giving importance to publications, which, it is hoped, will give more impetus to research in the department.

The department now wishes to propose another research center with its focus on geotechnical engineering and transportation engineering. The center proposes to conduct extensive research in these areas contributing to academic excellence and social needs. The soil profile in and around Bhimavaram indicates the presence of highly swelling clays which undergo detrimental volumetric changes corresponding to moisture regime. Hence, these soils are highly problematic in nature posing numerous challenges to Civil engineers. They are also difficult to work with as they are highly plastic fat clays. The proposed research center aims at conducting focused research on expansive soils of Bhimavaram and surrounding areas highlighting various amelioration techniques such as chemical stabilization, physical alteration and anchor techniques such as granular pile anchors. It also proposes to investigate the efficacy of lime-soil columns, fly ash-columns (FACS) and fly ash-soil columns and chemical slurry techniques. All this research will result in high quality journal publications, award of PhD degrees and consultancy answering the social needs.

The transportation wing of this research center aims at solving numerous road problems in the areas near Bhimavaram. For example, many roads to and from Bhimavaram and surrounding areas are crippled with problems such as pot holes, surface undulations and shoulder disintegration, which causes a lot of discomfort to travelers and vehicular traffic. These problems are attributed to seasonal moisture water table fluctuations, flow of water in sub-grades from nearby canals, poor planning and construction. The research centre aims at addressing these problems through a systematic research which will be mainly experimental and observational. By a thorough-going research on pavement materials such as sub-grades etc, the center proposes to suggest various remedial measures such as compaction, stabilization and geosynthetic/geogrid reinforcement. The performance of the pavements can be thoroughly enhanced by improving CBR through the above methods. Where the sub-grades are observed to be expansive in nature, special research and remedial measures will be taken out.

The proposed center of research, while conducting the above research through concerted efforts, hopes to obtain funding from various funding agencies such as DST to further enhance the laboratory facilities in order to cater to the research needs.

The Center of Excellence is headed and supervised by Dr. B. R. Phani Kumar in the areas of Geotechnical Engineering and Dr. M. Jagapathi Raju in the areas of transportation engineering. It is attracting scholars not only from the SRKR Civil Engineering Department but also from other institutions such as VIT University (Vellore, TN), IIT Hyderabad, JNT University Hyderabad and JNT University Kakinada. It is hoped that the center will flourish further and contribute to excellence in research and publications and serve the society.

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