This document summarizes research being conducted at the Structural Engineering Research Centre in Chennai, India. It describes current research projects including developing precast lightweight building panels, ferrocement water tanks, using fly ash aggregates, and brick funicular shells for roofing. It also outlines the laboratories available for structural testing, wind and earthquake engineering, fatigue and fracture testing.

1. CSIR-
STRUCTURAL
ENGINEERING
RESEARCH
CENTRE
(SERC),
CHENNAI, INDIA
BY
KIRTHIGA.E

2. 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

3. PRECAST LIGHTWEIGHT PANELS FOR
WALL AND
ROOF ELEMENTS

4. 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

5. ENVIRONMENTALCONSIDERATIONS,
IFAPPLICABLE
 Sustainable and green construction through
savings in energy costs for cooling or heating
Major Plant Equipment and Machinery
Required
Concrete mixture machine

6. MAJOR RAW MATERIALS TO BE UTILIZED
 EPS panels,
 rebars,
 cement,
 Fly ash,
 sand,
 Coarse aggregate,
 carboxylated ether,
 viscosity
 modifying agent and water.

7. FERROCEMENTWATERTANKSANDPRODUCTS

8. 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.

9. MAJOR PLANT EQUIPMENT AND MACHINERY
REQUIRED
 Conventional construction tools only

10. FLY ASH AGGREGATES

11. 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.

12. MAJOR RAW MATERIALS TO BE UTILIZED
 Flyash,
 lime,
 cement
 water
Major Plant Equipment and Machinery
Required
 Pelletiser,
 Curing chamber

13. FUNICULAR SHELLS FOR ROOFING

14. APPLICATION / USES
 Saving in cement
 Saving in steel
 Speedier construction, if movable formwork
is adopted
 Saving in over all cost

15. 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

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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
.

19. 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

20. STRUCTURAL TESTING LABORATORY
Prototype bubble-type Dome unit
undergoing Strength Evaluation

21. 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

22. 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.

23. 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

24. 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