CIVIL SEMINAR TOPICS - Civil Emgimeerimg

CIVIL SEMINAR TOPICS

List of topics which you can selects for your presentation of last year.

1. CorrosionOf Reinforcement In HVFA Concrete

2. Silica Fume Concrete

3. Self Compacting Concrete

4. Fatigue Behaviour Of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete Beams

5. Passive Solar Buildings

6. New Techniques Of Erosion Control On Hill Roads

7. Application Of Infrared Thermography In Concrete  Engineering

8. Trenchless Technology

9. Plastic As Soil Stabilizer

·        Corrosion Of Reinforcement In HVFA Concrete

Corrosion of reinforcements has been one of the major challenges that the civil engineers have been facing. Corrosion leads to the formation of rust which results in the spilling of concrete which in turn leads to the exposure of rebar to the aggressive environment. This will accelerate the ill effects and ultimately leads to the breakdown of the structure. Corrosion mainly occurs in areas of aggressive environment such as coastal regions. It is very important that corrosion of reinforcement must be prevented in order to have a durable structure. Even though there are many methods to prevent corrosion, most of them are uneconomical and requires great skill. Some of the recent studies in various parts of the world have revealed that high volume fly ash (HVFA) concrete can protect the steel reinforcement more efficiently, so that it can resist corrosion, and thus the structure as a whole. HVFA concrete is a type of concrete in which a part of the cement is replaced by fly ash, which is an industrial waste. Thus the implementation of h v f a concrete can minimize corrosion in an effective way. Moreover it can lead to much durable structure without considerable increase in cost.

·        Silica Fume Concrete

Silica fume is also referred to as micro silica or condensed silica fume but the term silica fume has been generally accepted. It is a by-product of manufacture of silica and ferrosilicon alloys from high purity quartz and coal in a submerged arc electric furnace. It is reported that the addition of ultra fine particle in HPC improves the strength of concrete. The optimum silica fume proportions in between 20% and 25% by weight of concrete. In itself silica fume does not have any binding properties, but it reacts with calcium hydroxide on hydration of cement and produces the gel i.e. calcium silicate hydrate which has good binding properties. Silica fume has been used in manufacture of high strength concrete.

·        Self Compacting Concrete

Self Compacting Concrete (SCC) is defined as a category of High Performance Concrete that has excellent deformability in the fresh state and high resistance to segregation, and can be placed and compacted under its self weight without applying vibration. SCC was first developed in Japan in mid 1980. Since then, it has found applications in reinforced concrete sections containing congested reinforcements. Poor quality of vibration of concrete, in congested locations, has often been a shortcoming of traditional concrete. In such situations, SCC, which flows under its self weight and does not require any external vibration, has revolutionized the concrete placement.

·        Fatigue Behaviour Of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete Beams

Construction material subjected to repetitive or cyclic loading have to be qualified for their fatigue behaviour. Generally their behaviour is considered satisfactory if they withstand two million cycle of repetitive loading without distress or failure at that required mean stress level and range stress.

The recent research in reinforcing Portland cement based material with randomly distributed fibres was spurred by pioneering research or fibre reinforced concrete (FRC) conducted in the United state in the 1960s.The addition of fibre in the concrete matrix improves the monotonic flexural strength, flexural fatigue strength, impact strength, shock resistance, ductility, and flexural toughness in concrete, besides delaying and arresting crack proportion. Fatigue is often described by a parameter ‘Fatigue life’ which essentially represents the number of cycles the material can withstand under a given pattern of repetitive loading, before falling.

This paper presents the details of the experimental investigations carried out at the structural engineering research centre (S E R C) to study the behaviour of reinforced concrete beam cast at different types of steel fibre in the concrete matrix and subjected to Fatigue loading.

·        Stress Ribbon Bridges

Passive solar heating and cooling represents an important strategy for displacing traditional energy sources in buildings. Passive solar techniques make use of the steady supply of solar energy by means of building designs that carefully balance their energy requirements with the building's site and window orientation. The term passive indicates that no additional mechanical equipment is used, other than the normal building elements. In this approach, the building itself or some element of it takes advantage of natural energy characteristics in materials and air created by exposure to the sun. Passive systems are simple, have few moving parts, and require minimal maintenance and require no mechanical systems. All solar gains are brought in through windows. All passive techniques use building elements such as walls, windows, floors and roofs, in addition to exterior building elements and landscaping, to control heat generated by solar radiation. Solar heating designs collect and store thermal energy from direct sunlight. Passive cooling minimizes the effects of solar radiation through shading or generating airflows with convection ventilation. The benefits of using passive solar techniques include simplicity, price and the design elegance of fulfilling one's needs with materials at hand.

As a design approach, passive solar design can take many forms. It can be integrated to greater or lesser degrees in a building. Key considerations regarding passive design are determined by the characteristics of the building site. The most effective designs are based on specific understanding of a building site's wind patterns, terrain, vegetation, solar exposure and other factors often requiring professional architectural services. However, a basic understanding of these issues can have a significant effect on the energy performance of a building.

·        New Techniques Of Erosion Control On Hill Roads

Transportation contributes to all round development of a country and hence plays a vital rate towards its progress. India, being predominantly rural in nature, road links is found to have distinct advantages over other modes of transportation. The impact of highway location on the environment is a major concern of the highway engineer and the public. If the highways are not properly located and designed it will subject to erosion and may contribute sediments to streams. The control of soil and water is basic to the protection of the road structure and therefore highway design, construction and maintenance procedure must be continually evaluated to minimize erosion and sedimentation problems.

Erosion can be controlled to considerable degree by geometric design and with proper provision for drainage and fitting landscape development. Although some standardization of methods for minimizing soil erosion is also possible. Also erosion process is a natural phenomenon accelerated by man’s activity, technical competency is evaluating the severity of erosion problem and the planning and design of preventive and corrective measures is essential in obtaining economical and environmental satisfactory methods for erosion control.

·        Application Of Infrared Thermography In Concrete Engineering

Different types of Non-Destructive tests (NDT) are there to detect voids and cracks in concrete such as Ultrasonic Pulse Echo, Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity, Ground Penetrating Radar, Impact Echo Method, X-ray Scanning Method, Rebound Hammer Method, Infrared Thermography Method.

In which Infrared Thermography method is discussed in this paper
as concrete is used in newer areas and evidence is coming to light of premature deterioration in concrete structures there is a need to develop new methods for quality control at the time of concrete construction and for the evaluation of existing structures. Concrete specimens were designed and conditioned to represent some of the anomalies that may be found during construction and also in hardened concrete. From the study it emerges that Infrared Thermography is an effective tool for concrete placement and identifying location of voids and cracks in fresh and hardened concrete. It could be effectively used to narrow down areas that needed closer attention during an in-service inspection of concrete structures.

·        Trenchless Technology

Trenchless technology is a relatively new term that describes the installation of conduits beneath roadways without open-cutting. The term has been used on a global basis since the mid-1980s. However, some of the methods referred to as trenchless methods are not new. For example, auger boring and slurry boring have been used since the 1940s, and pipe jacking has been used since the early 1900s. These methods are referred to as road boring techniques or horizontal earth boring techniques. Nevertheless, many new trenchless techniques have been introduced and much advancement has taken place with the more traditional techniques. Although most of these methods require excavation for shafts, shaft locations usually can be selected to avoid or minimize traffic disruption. It is anticipated that the use of trenchless technology will continue to increase because of its inherent advantages of minimizing disruption to society and reducing environmental impact. Another driving force behind this increase is the benefit of avoiding or minimizing the handling, volume, treatment and/or disposal of contaminated soil. In many situations, these techniques have become cost-effective alternatives to traditional open-cutting methods.

·        Plastic As Soil Stabilizer

Use of plastic products such as polythene bags, bottles, containers and packing strips etc. is increasing day by day. As a result amount of waste plastic also increased. This will leads to various environmental problems. Many of the wastes produced today will remain in the environment for many years leading to various environmental concerns. Therefore it is necessary to utilize the wastes effectively with technical development in each field. Many by-products are being produced using the plastic wastes. This paper presents the details of studies, conducted by various researchers on the possible use of waste plastic for soil stabilization. The results of the studies indicate that by adding plastic strips in soil; shear strength, tensile strength and California bearing ratio (CBR) value of the soil increases.