Department of

CIVIL
ENGINEERING The official University Newsletter
Aug 2018,

Features:
An Overview
About Civil Engineering
Message from the HoD
Ongoing Research Projects
Students achievements
Faculty recognitions
Our laboratories
Message from seniors
Events conducted

Page | 1
AN OVERVIEW “We shape our
Buildings,
The Department of Civil Engineering and Management.
Engineering BITS Pilani was Many of our faculty members and
thereafter they
established in the year 1959 and students are involved in research shape us.”
is one of the oldest departments in activities in various areas of civil
the country. Over the years the engineering. The department is
department has nurtured young also very active in conducting “Go for civil
minds to produce bright able civil conferences, workshops, short
engineers. The department has term seminars etc. The engineering,
expertise in almost the entire department has been constantly because civil
spectrum of civil engineering, involved in a range of consultancy
offering Higher Degree projects.
engineering is the
programmes in Structural branch of
Engineering, Transportation engineering which
Engineering and Infrastructure
teaches you the
most about
managing people.
Managing people is
a skill which is very,
very useful and
applies almost
regardless of what
you do.”
– Sir John Harvey
Jones

CIVIL ENGINEERING
Civil engineering is a considered the second-oldest
professional engineering engineering discipline after
discipline that deals with the military engineering, and it is
design, construction, and defined to distinguish non-
maintenance of the physical military engineering from
and naturally built military engineering. Civil
environment, including works engineering takes place in the
such as roads, bridges, canals, public sector from municipal
dams, airports, sewerage through to national
systems, pipelines, and governments, and in the
railways. Civil engineering is private sector from individual
traditionally broken into a homeowners through to
number of sub-disciplines. It is international companies.

Page | 2
 MESSAGE FROM THE DESK OF HoD
Dr Ravi Kant Mittal Welcome to the Department of Civil Engineering at BITS Pilani. Department of
Civil Engineering was established in the year 1959 and is currently offering
Associate Professor &
programs in all three tiers, i.e. B.E. in Civil, M.E Civil with specializations in
Head Department of Civil
Engineering structural, Transportation and Infrastructure Engineering and Management apart
Pilani Campus from doctoral degree. Over the last five decades, we have grown our expertise
and competence in the core Civil Engineering curriculum and university industry
linkage.
We have a strong undergraduate program in civil engineering with a batch
strength close to 100 including dual degree students with science as first degree.
At the moment, Civil Engineering Department is well served with 20 faculty
members and 22 research scholars to support our First Degree and Higher
Degree teaching. Our faculty members are actively participating in teaching,
research, and academic administration. We strive very hard to continuously
strengthening our Higher Degree and Ph.D. programmes in an effort to give equal
emphasis on teaching and research. Frequent curriculum benchmarking and
review by involving experts is the strong point of the department and thus helps
in the systematic update of our curriculum. The department is proactive in
bringing several consultancy projects in diversified areas of civil engineering.

Over the years, Department has produced eminent engineers who occupy top
leadership positions. Faculty have been conferred with many prestigious awards
at national and international levels and several faculty members serve on the
editorial boards of national and international journals, apart from reviewing
technical articles for journals on a regular basis.The department has executed 22
sponsored research projects worth over Rs. 425 Lakhs in the last five years.

The department is constantly involved in reaching out to students through small

workshops to interested participants over the weekend that will further help them
in course projects. Most importantly, every course work is judiciously designed to
test the fundamentals of students in a most exhaustive and engaging way. Also,
strong focus is being given on the experiential learning through project
components. Department arranges invited talks by experts and field visits as and
when possible.
Department is strongly committed to provide quality teaching and research
thereby providing suitable learning platform to students to take up the challenges
of the future.
We wish all the civil engineering students a very productive stay at the
academically vibrant atmosphere in Pilani.

Best wishes,
Ravi Kant Mittal, Ph.D.
Head of the Department

Page | 3
ONGOING RESEARCH PROJECTS
Principal/Co-
Project Title Principal Agency
Investigator

Conjunctive use of rainwater and Groundwater to provide

DST, New
safe drinking water with intervention of Advanced Rajiv Gupta
Delhi
Technology

A. K. Sarkar,
NRRDA,
Impact of PMGSY Roads on Accessibility in Rural Areas Ajit Pratap
MoRD,
Singh

Preparation of State of the Art Report (SOAR) on Fog vision Prof. Rajiv MORTH,
system for roads Gupta NOIDA, U.P

Development of Freight Generation Model in Urban Areas: A Prasanta

BITS RIG
Case study of Jaipur metropolitan Region Kumar Sahu

Durgesh
Modeling Pedestrian Flow Using a Continuum Model BITS RIG
Vikram

Experimental investigation on Structural Performance of RC G.

BITS RIG
Frame with Deep Beams under Gravity loading Muthukumar

Additional
Investigation of ductile characteristics of high strength competitive
G.
concrete beams reinforced with high strength steel and Research
Muthukumar
basalt fibre under elevated temperature conditions Grant, BITS
Pilani

Development of Copper Bio-Leaching Anupam Ministry of

methodology/technique from tailing waste at Hindustan Singhal, S.K. Mines, New
Copper Limited, Khetri verma (BIO) Delhi

Anshuman,
Potential of MarbleSlurry as a Mineral Admixture in DST, New
Dipendu
Concrete Delhi
Bhunia

CSIR, New
Dynamic buckling response of composite structures S. N. Patel
Delhi

Road safety audit of widening and strengthening of existing

Bikaner-Phalodi section to four lane from Km 4+200 to Km Ashoke K. NRRDA,
55+250 and two lane from Km 55+250 to Km 163+500 of Sarkar New Delhi
NH-15 on BOT (Toll) basis in the state of Rajasthan
STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENTS
 Two of the graduating students (Mr. Kabil Bhargava and Ms. Isha Shyam Narsaria) have been
recently awarded Prof. V S Rao Foundation “Best All Rounder Award” by BITS Pilani for the
year 2018.
 Mr. Prateek Arora has secured admission for MS in Structural Engineering at the prestigious
Stanford University.
 Prem Gandhi (2012A2PS585P) has got admission at Purdue University for Construction
Management program in the year 2017.
 Mr. Kabil Bhargava has been awarded as OP Jindal Engineering & Management (OPJEM)
scholar for the year 2017.
 Onkar Ashish (2014A2PS0602P) and Mayank Vikhona (2014A2PS0623P) secured first
runner up position in all over the world and first position in India in Bentley International
Student Design global competition in 2017.
 Rishi Badola (2014A2PS0591P) was awarded a scholarship of INR 40,000/- on securing an
All India Rank of 7 in Nationwide Education Scholarship Test (NEST – Senior-II) conducted
across India in January 2017.
 Rishi Badola (2014A2PS0591P) and Akshansh Rai (2014A2TS0788P) won the first prize in
bending moment online quiz based on civil engineering organized by Ethos India in Feb-
March,2017 and sponsored by 'TATA TISCON'.
 Prateek Arora (2014A2PS0056P) was awarded O.P. Jindal Engineering and Management
Scholar in the year 2016.
FACULTY RECOGNITIONS
 Prof. A.K. Sarkar has been appointed  Prof. Rajiv Gupta received Best
as the member of H-5 Committee for session paper award for “Purifying
Rural Roads for the year 2018-2020 in Porous Concrete for Drinking
recognition of his outstanding Water,” paper presented at 5th Asia
contribution in the field of rural Conference on Mechanical and
roads. Materials Engineering (ACMME 2017)
 Prof. A.K. Sarkar was appointed as a at University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Member of the committee, Rural during June 9-11, 2017.
Roads Development, Vision 2040 in  Prof Ravi Kant Mittal, received best
the year 2016. paper award for "Liquefaction
 Prof. Ajit Pratap Singh, Civil Screening Criteria For Earth Dams“
Engineering Department was presented at International
appointed as Commissioner by Conference on Advances in Civil
Hon'ble National Green Tribunal to Engineering and Sustainable
assess Status Report on CETPs, STPs Construction ACESC'16 organized by
and Industrial Pollution in Jojari River SRM University, Chennai, March 30 to
(Jodhpur to Balotra, Rajasthan) in April 1, 2016.
March 2018.  Prof. Manoj Kumar has been
 Department of Civil Engineering has nominated as expert member for
organized 2nd International Hazard Safety Cell by PWD Rajasthan
Conference on Advances in Concrete, in the year 2014.
Structural & Geotechnical  Dr. Prasanta Kumar Sahu was a
Engineering (ACSGE - 2018) during visiting scientist - University of Regina
February 26-28, 2018 with the during June-July, 2016 and during
participation of 150 people including January 2017.
foreign delegates and eminent  Prof. Anupam Singhal visited at
keynote speakers. Trinity College Dublin , Ireland from
 Prof. S.B. Singh acted as Expert 19th May to 14th July, 2015, under
Advisory Committee for DST University Immersion (abroad)
Rajasthan (Jaipur) Projects funding in Programme .
Civil Engineering Discipline on
29th January 2016.
Civil Engineering Laboratories in BITS Pilani
 Transportation Lab
 Structural Engineering Lab
 Surveying Lab
 Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering Lab
 Hydraulics Lab
 Concrete Lab
 Environmental Engineering Lab
 Computer Centre and GIS Lab

STUDENT’S TESTIMONIAL
“BITS Pilani provides an environment for all round development of students. The faculties in
Department of Civil Engineering are very cooperative and encouraging. They encourage
students to apply their class room learning in a real-world problems in civil engineering.
Practice School provides a blend of theoretical and practical knowledge as well as valuable
research skills. The courses offered by the department are also very much applicable to the
industry.
I got admission in Stanford University for M.S. in Structural engineering.”

- Prateek Arora - 2014A2PS0556 (Ex- C.E.A. President)

Events conducted by Civil Engineering Association last year:
JENGA
A fun event – Jenga , was conducted by CEA in the
third week of August to enable the Freshers gather
together , socialize and also understand some
basics of construction engineering principle-
“Beware of the Gravity” and “ Stronger the base,
higher the face” . The event received exceptionally
well participation with over 20 teams competing
amongst themselves.
STAAD Pro Workshop
STAAD Pro is a well-known civil engineering
software. It is used in various projects to analyse
the structure. The STAAD workshops were
conducted by the members of CEA in NAB to help
the Third Year students gain some knowledge
about the software as they need to make a project
using the same software in the first semester.
Paper Tower
A fun event in which your architectural skills
alongside with Civil Engineering skills are tested in
order to create the tallest self-standing tower by
the use of basic stationery only. The event received
good number of participation.
Revit workshops
Various workshops were conducted over a span of
a month to teach the Second year students the
basics of AUTODESK Revit software. Revit is an
important software which is vastly used to
understand the finishing of a structure and the final
3-D look with interiors. Since the students had to
make a project using Revit, the event received good
number of participation from the sophomore
batch.
Krazy Bridge
It was a semi-technical event with a fun approach,
to build a miniature bridge using the given
materials. The bridge which would hold the
heaviest weight (standard weights were used to
measure the strength) amongst its competitors,
without collapsing would be declared as the
winner. This event was conducted in APOGEE and
received massive participation even from the non-
BITSian crowd.
Roller Coaster
It was fun event conducted to enhance the
aesthetic as well as structural skills of young
Engineering students. Chart papers and fevicol
were provided to the participants in order to build
the longest roller coaster which could stand by
itself. A marble was used to test the track of the
coaster and various skill points were awarded for
innovation