Bridge Engineering and Structures Division
Areas of R&D and Consultancy / Core Activities
Areas of R&D
- Application of Advanced Composites for Bridge Construction/ Rehabilitation
- Bridge Distress Diagnostics and Rehabilitation
- Development of Bridge Management System for Highway Bridges
- Characterization of Various Loads (Temperature/wind/ earthquake) for Bridge Design
- Concrete Technology & Corrosion Studies in bridges and other civil structures
- Creation of Complete Range of Independent Facility for Testing of Expansion Joints
- Design and Development of Mobile Bridge Inspection Unit
- Development of Robot for underwater inspection of bridges
- Fatigue studies on bridge components
- Wind tunnel studies on bridges and other structures
- Field Instrumentation and Health monitoring of Bridges
- Live Load Characterization for bridge design and evaluation
- Vibration studies of structures
- Assessment of present prestressing force in PSC bridges
- Bridge Aerodynamics
Core Activities/ Consultancy
- Analysis and Design of Bridges and other Civil Infrastructures
- Bridge maintenance management system
- Development of software for structural applications
- Monitoring of structures using instrumentation including long term monitoring
- Evaluation of Load carrying capacity of bridges
- Health (Condition) Assessment of bridges and rating of bridges
- Repair and rehabilitation of bridges
- Evaluation of load carrying capacity of Road and Railway Bridges
- Quality Assurance during bridge construction
- Characterisation of bridge components and materials
Infrastructure Facilities
- Structural Testing Laboratory
- Dynamic cum Heavy Testing Laboratory with Fatigue testing System
- Field Instrumentation Laboratory
- Wind Tunnel Facility at Ghaziabad (HRDC Campus)
- Mobile Bridge Inspection Unit
Training Programmes
- Bridge Design and Construction
- Bridge Diagnostics, Performance Evaluation and Rehabilitation
Training to Students
- Guidance to PhD, Post-graduate and Under-graduate students and research internship
Software Tools
- ATENA
- AUTOCAD
- Crystal Report
- Microsoft Developer Studio
- NISA
- REVIT
- RM -2006
- SQL
- STAAD-PRO
- STAAD-PRO-FOUNDATION
Software and database developed by the division
- CRASH - Software for prediction of creep and shrinkage in concrete by various analytical models
- DAPCAS - Software for finite element based dynamic analysis of prestressed concrete structures considering nonlinear material properties and effects of creep and shrinkage
- Indo-BMMS - Software for Bridge Maintenance Management System in GIS environment for RCC slab and RCC T-girder bridges
- RLAB –RC – Software for Distress Diagnostics, Performance Evaluation and Remaining Life Assessment of RC Slab and T-girder Bridge Superstructure.
- Software for analysis of Vortex excitation, Flutter and Buffeting of Cable Stayed Bridge Decks
- Software for degradation modelling of RCC slab and RCC T-girder bridges considering Environmental effects such as Corrosion, Alkali-silica reaction
- Software RLAB-R1 - Software for bridge distress diagnosis of RCC slab and RCC T-girder bridge superstructure
- Software to find out the load carrying capacity of RCC slab and RCC T-girder bridges
- Software to find out the rating of RCC slab and RCC T-girder bridges
- Software to find out the residual life of RCC slab and RCC T-girder bridges
Laboratory and Field Testing Facilities
- Bridge Weigh in Motion (BWIM) system
- Compression Testing Machine (200 Ton UTM)
- Non-destructive testing (NDT) facility for concrete structures
- Facilities for water proofing membranes
- Prestressing Facility
- Comprehensive Testing facility for Bridge Expansion joints
- Dynamic strain (response) measuring system
- Equipments for Corrosion and durability studies of concrete
- Equipments for Non-Destructive testing of concrete and steel components
- Facility for Testing of Elastomeric Bearing
- Material Testing Laboratory for aggregate, cement, chloroprene and plastic
- Structural Vibration monitoring system
- Testing of protective coatings on concrete
- Testing of water proofing membranes
- Universal Testing Machine
- Vibration of structures
Significant Achievements
- Model studies on well foundation and retaining walls to achieve safe and economical design
- Study the Effect of Edge stiffening on slab bridges led to economic design.
- Established method for conversion of two simply supported spans to continuous using external prestressing.
- Development of Testing Facility for performance evaluation of bridge bearings
- Evaluation of corrosion protective coatings,
- Advanced Techniques for repair such as steel plate bonding, FRP, stitching techniques, NSM, external prestressing for retrofitting / rehabilitation of concrete bridges
- Development of Limit State Design of T- Beam Bridge
- Development of High Performance and self compacting concrete for construction Industry
- Long term health monitoring using instrumentation of road bridges
- Development of design methodology for trail suspension bridges
- Design and execution of CD structures and small bridges under PMGSY program
- Guidelines and Manual of Practice for repair of Cracks and Spalls in Concrete Structures
- Guidelines for aerodynamic design of cable stayed bridges
- Simplification of Live load for Design of Highway Bridges as per IRC loading
- Evaluation of Load carrying capacity of a number of existing bridges
- Performance evaluation of various types of railway bridges
- Design, Instrumentation and Quality Assurance of Roadway over Drains
- Development of data base management system on performance monitoring of bridges
- Development of Mobile Bridge Inspection Unit
- Development of Fiber optic strain sensors
- Use of CFRP for rehabilitation of bridges
- SOAR on Instrumentation of traffic (IRC)
- SOAR on Instrumentation of highways and tunnels (IRC)
- Performance evaluation of expansion joints of several bridges/ flyovers
Contribution to Formulation of Standards
- IS: 1893-Part (iii) “Criteria for Seismic Resistant Design of Bridges” for BIS
- New wind load clause in IRC:6.
- IRC: 6: 2010 Standard Specifications and Code of Practice of Road Bridges (Fifth Revision)
- New Clause on Barge Impact Load in IRC:6 (Approved by Council in 2010)
- New Clause on congestion factor and snow load in IRC: 6 ( Approved by Council of IRC in 2011)
- Rationalization of Seismic Forces for the Design of Bridges (Approved in 2008)
- Load combination and Load Factor for Limit State Design of Bridges (Approved in 2009)
- IRC:24-2010 “ Standard Specifications and Code of Practice for Road Bridges- Section V Steel Bridges ( Limit State Method), Third Revision
- IRC:112-2011 ‘Code of Practice for Concrete Road Bridges’
- IRC Special publications- Non-destructive testing techniques for bridges
- SOAR on Underwater Sea repairing of bridge components
- IRC 83(Pt 1) Roller and rocker bearings (II Rev)
- IRC 83(Pt 2) Elastomeric bearings (I Rev)
- IRC SR 22: State-Of-Art-Report: Areas Of Application And Techniques Of. Instrumentation In Traffic Engineering
- Development of IRC: SP-13 “Guidelines for Design of Culverts and Small Bridges”
- IRC: SP-56:2011 “Guidelines for Steel Pedestrian Bridges” (First Revision)
- IRC: SP:69 “Guidelines and Specifications for Expansion Joints( First Revision)
- IRC- SP- 80 “Guidelines for Corrosion Prevention Monitoring and Remedial Measures for Concrete Bridge Structures”