Saturday, September 25, 2010

Concrete Solutions to India's infrastructure woes

Can injecting bacteria in concrete help fix Delhi's infrastructure woes?

Even as the nation's Capital, which is in the throes of Commonwealth Games building and repair frenzy, has seen many a crack and collapse, Dr Fixit's Institute of Structural Protection and Rehabilitation has come up with some novel repair solutions.

“Just like your bones heal by themselves, now you have self-healing concrete that can lengthen the life of a building,” said Professor Nele De Belie of Belgium's Ghent University and Technical Director, Mangel Laboratory for Concrete Research, at a press conference in Delhi, organised by the institute. The secret: bacteria injected into the concrete that makes the building a living, breathing structure that also repairs itself from its biggest enemy: water.

Of course, all this is still in early trial stages and not yet in India. But how it works is: the bacteria makes the concrete less permeable. And the less permeable it is, fewer the chances of cracks. And, if you fill existing cracks with bacteria, the permeability of cracks will lessen.

According to Professor De Belie, some churches in France have tried out this technique of bio healing of cracks and met with success.

Dr Fixit Institute (DFI), a non profit training and skill development organisation in renewal engineering, promoted by Pidilite Industries, claims that within the construction sector, at least 40 per cent of the activity is usually repair and restoration work. And, yet, little attention is paid to this aspect.

“Global statistics reveal that 25 per cent of all repairs become unsatisfactory within five years and 75 per cent within 10 years,” said Dr A.K. Chatterjee.

Pointing to the infrastructure mess in Delhi (he was quick to clarify that the talk on Healthy Construction organised by the institute just when the CWG building chaos was at its peak was a pure coincidence), Dr Chatterjee pointed out how there was a serious lack of knowledge in the refurbishment area of construction.

He said talks are on with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and Airports Authority of India in providing skill development in this area.

“New products and technologies are not being used, there is lack of skill and knowledge, consumers are unable to discern material quality,” he listed out the problems. “India creates Rs 350,000 crore worth of infrastructure assets every year and yet we are doing little to maintain those assets. We need to have a maintenance culture,” he said.

“With India being the second biggest producer of cement, we need to keep abreast of technologies like self healing concrete,” said Dr Bishwajit Bhattacharjee, Professor, Dept of Civil Engineering, IIT, Delhi. However, he felt that many problems can be resolved at design stage.

“Of all the building failures, maximum are due to faulty design followed by faulty construction,” he said.

Finally, using self healing concrete will mean less wastage of cement – and that offers a straight environment benefit.

As Prof De Belie pointed out, “The cement industry products contribute to seven per cent of CO2 emissions in the world.”

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