CSIR-

STRUCTURAL
ENGINEERING
RESEARCH
CENTRE
(SERC),
CHENNAI, INDIA

BY
KIRTHIGA.E
CURRENT RESEARCH
 PRECAST LIGHTWEIGHT PANELS FOR WALL AND
ROOF ELEMENTS
 FERROCEMENTWATERTANKSANDPRODUCTS
 FLY ASH AGGREGATES
 BRICK FUNICULAR SHELLS FOR ROOFING

 Laboratory

 Wind Engineering and Earthquake Engineering

 Structural Testing Laboratory
 Advanced Seismic Testing & Research Laboratory
 Fatigue & Fracture Laboratory
PRECAST LIGHTWEIGHT PANELS FOR
WALL AND
ROOF ELEMENTS
APPLICATION / USES

 For mass housing and affordable buildings

 For quality and speedy constructions

 Constructions in earthquake prone areas

 Light weight buildings in poor soil conditions

 For all types of single and multi storied

buildings
ENVIRONMENTALCONSIDERATIONS,
IFAPPLICABLE

 Sustainable and green construction through

savings in energy costs for cooling or heating

Major Plant Equipment and Machinery

Required

Concrete mixture machine

MAJOR RAW MATERIALS TO BE UTILIZED

 EPS panels,
 rebars,
 cement,
 Fly ash,
 sand,
 Coarse aggregate,
 carboxylated ether,
 viscosity
 modifying agent and water.
FERROCEMENTWATERTANKSANDPRODUCTS
APPLICATION / USES
 Structures can be thin and
light
 They can be easily precast
 They are amenable to repairs
in case of local damage
 Considerable saving in
formwork particularly for complex
shapes ,
 Saving in cost.
MAJOR PLANT EQUIPMENT AND MACHINERY
REQUIRED
 Conventional construction tools only
FLY ASH AGGREGATES
APPLICATION / USES

 Conversion of fly ash in to aggregates results in large

scale
 Utilization of fly ash, a waste product from the thermal
power
 plants.
 Can be used to produce concretes for structures.
 Structural grade lightweight concretes with 28 day
compressive
 Strength of 30MPa can be produced using these
aggregates.
 Building blocks can be produced using fly ash
aggregates.
MAJOR RAW MATERIALS TO BE UTILIZED
 Flyash,
 lime,
 cement
 water
Major Plant Equipment and Machinery
Required
 Pelletiser,
 Curing chamber
FUNICULAR SHELLS FOR ROOFING
APPLICATION / USES

 Saving in cement
 Saving in steel

 Speedier construction, if movable formwork

is adopted
 Saving in over all cost
MAJOR RAW MATERIALS TO BE UTILIZED
 Building materials including
 first class bricks,
 cement,
 Sand,
 aggregate,
 Steel reinforcement rods , etc.,

 Major Plant Equipment and Machinery

Required

 concrete mixer machine and conventional

construction tools only
WIND ENGINEERING AND EARTHQUAKE
ENGINEERING
 Wind Tunnel Studies on Special Structures and
Interference Effects in Structural Clusters.
 Field measurement of wind
Loads and responses of lattice
and tubular structures.
 Seismic Damage control
Strategies for structures.
 Wind tunnel Investigations on
Structural Models under Normal and Extreme Wind
Conditions.
WIND ENGINEERING AND EARTHQUAKE
ENGINEERING
 Development of new structural schemes for better
earthquake resistant performance.
 Development and evaluation of
vibration control devices and base
isolators.
 Characterisation of dynamic
properties of materials.
 Damage Modelling.
 Development of robust pseudo-dynamic testing
scheme as an alternative to shake table testing.
WIND ENGINEERING AND EARTHQUAKE
ENGINEERING
 Wind flow and load evaluation on buildings
and structures.
 Assessment of Methodologies for seismic
.
Performance Evaluation of Structures.
 Development of new

retrofit and rehabilitation

schemes
STRUCTURAL TESTING LABORATORY
 Heavy duty floor for testing prototypes as well as
model structural components
 Hydraulic loading plant up to 100 t capacity for static
and dynamic loading
 Servo-controlled electro-hydraulic
system with 250kN and 500kN actuators
 Instrumentation for measurement
of deflection, strains, rotation, etc.
during testing
 Reaction frames
 EOT crane of 10t capacity
STRUCTURAL TESTING LABORATORY

Prototype bubble-type Dome unit

undergoing Strength Evaluation
ADVANCED SEISMIC TESTING & RESEARCH
LABORATORY
 The laboratory is situated on a sprawling 48
x 23 m area consisting of three major
facilities:
 Two shake table systems on a rigid seismic
mass
 A pseudo-dynamic test facility,
housed in a box shaped reaction
well
 A heavy-duty test floor for static
and cyclic loading applications
FATIGUE & FRACTURE LABORATORY

 Heavy duty test floor of size 36m x 10.5 m

and two vertical reaction walls of 10.5 m
width and 7 m Height
 machine has top mounted actuator and load
cell and hence can be used for corrosion
fatigue studies.
FATIGUE & FRACTURE LABORATORY

Portable data acquisition systems for

measuring strain, pressure and temperature,
including high speed data acquisition unit
 Crack depth gauges for detection and sizing
of surface cracks by ACPD/ACFM
techniques
 Ultrasonic flaw detector
FATIGUE & FRACTURE LABORATORY
 Environmental chambers for carrying out tests on
materials and components at sub-zero and
 elevated temperatures
 Digital image processing system for
surface crack growth studies and
on-line
image acquisition during tests
 Portable thickness meter with
measuring range 0.6-399.9 mm
 Hydraulic power packs of total
capacity 390 lpm