ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTALY EFFICIENT BUILDINGS - A STEP TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
DR. A. K. GARG
The usage of Energy resources leads to environment damages by polluting the air, water and soil. The non-renewable reserves are continuously diminishing with increasing consumption and will not exist for future generation. Therefore, both energy conservation and energy efficiency are important for sustainable development. Energy conservation and energy efficiency are separate but related concepts. Energy conservation is achieved when growth of energy consumption is reduced. Energy conservation can be achieved through productivity increase or technological progress. On the other hand energy efficiency is achieved when energy intensity in a specified product, process or consumption is reduced without affecting output, consumption or comfort levels. Promotion of energy efficiency will contribute to energy conservation and is therefore an integral parts of energy conservation promotional policies. There is a great demand from occupant and workers to live and work in a building, which focus on healthier interiors, energy conservation and natural heat and light. Green building is a healthy place to live and work utilizing energy saving techniques during its construction; consume limited amounts of energy; minimize production of waste and have a longer, more usable lifetime than other structure. It cut down the need of heating or cooling the internal parts of a structure. Green Building have a marked edge over conventional buildings in that they save electricity & conserve potable water. Green buildings also called as sustainable buildings, high performance buildings and environment friendly buildings. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) principles adopted by the IGBC (Indian Green Building Council) and GRIHA(Green rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment) developed in TERI promotes the development of environmentally friendly Green buildings and rates the efficiency of Green buildings on a point system. This paper deals with sustainability in building construction.
Energy, Environment, Sustainability, Green Building, LEED
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Research Articles
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MATERIALS MANAGEMENT PROCESS IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECT
A. N. GHADGE, DR. P. V. PARAMESWARAN AND DR. P. H. SAWANT
Materials management department in an organization is responsible for making adequate quantities of right type of materials available, at most economical rates, to the construction unit, at appropriate time. It has to take into account the essential procedural formalities regarding material planning, purchasing, storing and handling, materials accounting and utilization on works. A measurement of the effectiveness of the materials management process is needed in order to analyze the performance of the process, to identify the needs for improvement and to plan for individuals' development programmes. A well-designed evaluation process, primarily aims at improving the performance of the personnel, with resultant increase in the overall benefits of the organization. Due to the complex and dynamic nature of the construction industry, materials management faces many unique challenges from materials planning, ordering, receiving and storing, handling and distribution, site usage and monitoring. Poor materials management leads to low construction productivity, cost over run and delay. The paper aims at measuring the performance of the materials management process in an organization particularly working in mass housing projects in terms of accuracy, quality, timeliness, costs and availability. In order to measure the five key factors a questionnaire consisting of 25 questions was prepared and got filled from ten construction companies involved mass housing projects in Mumbai. Study involves comparing the performance of these organizations, identifying similarities, differences.
Material Management, Quality, Accuracy, Teimliness, Cash, Availibility
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Research Articles
ECONOMIC DESIGN OF CUSUM CONTROL CHARTS FOR INDIAN RMC INDUSTRY
DEBASIS SARKAR AND GOUTAM DUTTA
The design of a control chart has economic consequences, in which the costs of sampling and testing, costs associated with investigating out of control signals and possibly correcting assignable causes, are all affected by the choice of the control chart parameters. Henceforth, it is logical to consider the design of a control chart from an economic viewpoint. In this present research work we made an attempt to develop an optimum economic model for CUSUM control charts applicable to Indian RMC industry.
CUSUM, Control charts, Ready Mixed Concrete (RMC), Economic design, Expected cycle time (ECT), Expected cost, Average run length (ARL).
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Research Articles
CONSTRUCTION SITE LAYOUT USING SIMULATED ANNEALING
DR. MOHAMED A. EL-GAFY AND DR. TARIQ ABDELHAMID
Construction site layout is an important activity in both project and site production planning. It is concerned with the positioning of temporary facilities that are utilized during the execution phase of a construction project. Site layout planning relies heavily on experience, heuristics, and ad-hoc methods and this makes it a complicated problem to formulate and bound. This paper describes the general site layout problem and proposes a formulation for it in terms of a combinatorial problem that is suitable for solution using simulated annealing algorithms (SA). SA is an evolutionary method motivated by an analogy to annealing in solids. The advantage of using this approach lies in the fact that the algorithm prevents the solution from getting trapped in a local minimum by accepting uphill moves with a limited probability and the non-dependence of the final solution on the initial solution. A case study is presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the Simulated Annealing heuristic algorithm in solving the construction site layout problem and illustrates its essential features.
site layout; layout planning, construction management; simulated annealing; layout heuristics
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Research Articles
TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS IN DELHI - A CASE STUDY
DR. INDRASEN SINGH
Traffic management in Work Zones should cover all modes of traffic viz, Cars. Motorised Two wheelers, Paratransit-taxis, Three wheelers, Buses and nonmotorised transport (pedestrians, bicycles, cycle-rickshaws). Their roles are complimentary, but variable and highly policy sensitive. There is a revival of interest in bicycle in developed and other countries as it consumes no fuel, causes no pollution, is a low cost and healthy mode of transport. In Indian cities, planning should cater for bicycle paths as it does for roads for motorized transport. These paths will cater for cycle-rickshaw also. It will reduce congestion on roads by avoiding unhealthy mixing of motorized and slow traffic, divert some traffic to bicycle paths and considerably improve movement of motorized traffic. Traffic management techniques like one way streets, traffic segregation and others, to complex intelligent transport systems with Area Traffic Control Systems, Automated Vehicle Locating System, Automated Highway Systems and Others, are key elements of this strategy. Most of these advanced technologies have been tested and implemented in Europe, Japan and USA. Technology status in India is still at a nascent stage. Throughout the world, appropriate technologies have been developed to address some peculiar traffic problems. The preliminary effort to counter the traffic problems is to employ low cost traffic management techniques. These could be vary from one way streets, road blocks, signages etc. For a long-term solution for the traffic problems, some more concrete technologies are to be implemented. Various solutions of traffic management are discussed in this paper. Delhi the capital metropolis of India has been considered as a case study.
AGTS, ICVS, ATS, PTIS, ATIS, AVLS, ATCS
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Research Articles
EXPERIMENTAL AND ANALYTICAL STUDY ON CONCRETE DEEP BEAMS WITH GFRP WEB REINFORCEMENT
Y. K. SABAPATHY AND DR. K. NAGAMANI
Corrosion of steel reinforcement in reinforced concrete structures is a problem of concern affecting its durability which reduces the life of the structure. In recent times, the use of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) material as reinforcement in concrete structures has been tried and used successfully. FRP reinforcement is mostly preferred at places where the environment is aggressive and corrosion of steel is severe. FRP materials are anti-corrosive, and have low weight to strength ratio, and are used for various civil engineering applications. In almost all cold region countries FRP reinforcement are preferred in the construction of marine and bridge structures, as it prevents deterioration of its structural strength and enhances the life of the structure. FRP composites are made of a high strength fiber such as Glass, Carbon, Aramid etc. embedded in a polymer matrix material. Amongst all the fibers, glass fiber is most widely used as it is cost effective. Several research works has been carried out to study the behaviour of FRP reinforced concrete beams. Nevertheless, very little effort has been taken to study the behaviour of Reinforced Concrete (RC) deep beams which are reinforced with FRP rebars. This work investigates the possibility of the using Glass Fiber Reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars as main and web reinforcements in RC deep beams having a 'shear-span to effective depth' ratio (a/d) less than one. Deep beams are structures which has larger depth comparable to its effective span length. The failure modes in deep beams are different from that of short or slender beams. This is mainly due to the fact that, deep beams primarily fail in shear rather than in flexure. Nine concrete deep beams with different configurations of GFRP web reinforcements were tested to understand the shear behaviour and to know the effectiveness of the web reinforcements. The only variable parameter being considered is the percentages of web reinforcement, while all the other parameters were kept constant. The results obtained shows that the performance of GFRP web reinforcements in deep beam was effective in resisting the shear failure and increasing its shear carrying capacity substantially.
MAINSTREAMING WOMEN IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY - A STUDY
C. VASANTHA
The Construction industry is the second largest industry of the country after Agriculture .In Agriculture participation of women is more than 80%. where as in Construction 0.01% only.The Construction industry has an annual turnover of Rs 2,10,000 crore . It contributes substantially to India's GDP and its capital formation. The Government is the largest principal employer of Construction workers as it undertakes the maximum Construction work. It is responsible for building the nation's infrastructure and for maintaining it. The Construction industry makes a significant contribution to the national economy and provides employment to large number of people. In its path of advancement the industry has to overcome number of challenges one of them is participation of Women as professionals and decision makers .This paper describes the representation of women folk in Construction sector and aimed at the increasing number of women studying, training and working in Engineering, Construction Technology.. It examines and touches the learning styles of women, curriculum content, recruitment and marketing and pedagogical practice that enhances self-esteem and confidence. Many studies link the question of a woman's professional identity with the complex question of the social Construction of gender identity in general and to the role of important social institutions like the family and educational system in this Construction. Gender stereotyping begins right from home where parents have different expectations for boys and girls: the choice of toys, clothes, even social appearances differ for girls and boys. To make sense of WOMEN'S experiences in Construction , and to identify the aspects of the Construction workplace that require change if women are to be successful in developing their careers, it is necessary to identify aspects of the existing culture which define their current position within it. The paper examines some implications of this process of gender-based professional identity of women and explores the reasons why girls who otherwise would be capable Engineers and Scientists are deterred from pursuing careers in this field and why some women who are already Engineers abandon their careers to do other jobs or remain as housewives.
Gender identity, Strategies, Empower, Construction Professionals, Curriculum Content
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