Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering

Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) is a private university located in&nbsp;Tamil Nadu, India. Founded in 1984, as Vellore Engineering College, the institution offers 20 undergraduate, 34 postgraduate, four integrated and four research programs. It has campuses in Vellore, Amravati, Bhopal and Chennai.

VIT is one of the top ranked private universities in India according to NIRF, THE and QS Rankings.&nbsp;Govt. of India has recognized&nbsp;VIT, Vellore as an&nbsp;Institution of Eminence. This has allowed VIT to take independent quality initiatives and move up in world ranking.

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VIT University

School of Civil Engineering

The tradition of using lime as a binder has been in practice over the centuries and is cited in the architectural feats of all kinds of civilizations. Besides the basic ingredients of lime, sand and water, organic admixtures were also mixed into the mortars to modify fresh and hardened state properties as well as to enhance its durability. The motivation of the present study was to develop a replacement of synthetic admixtures by the bio-admixtures. The plant extract of Cissus glauca Roxb (CGR) which is being used in ancient temples and monuments in Kerala has been tested as admixture in varying concentrations and fermentation periods in lime mortar mix. The admixture is polysaccharide rich and a moisturizing agent. Tests were conducted to measure changes in microstructure of the mortar; fresh state properties such as setting time and workability, mechanical properties such as compressive strength and flexural strength. Also, physical characteristics of admixture modified mortars such as bulk density, porosity and water absorption were also determined. Morphological analysis using SEM with EDX, mineralogical analysis using XRD and organic analysis adopting FT- IR have been done to validate the results of mechanical and physical tests. Capillary water and salt absorption by suction and resistance to salt crystallization cycles were measured as an indicator of durability properties. The admixture modified mortar resulted in increased mechanical properties and reduced water absorption. It also limits the capillary rise of water and salt intrusion through the hydrophobic nature. The admixture modified mortar have also offered better resistance against the damaging action of deteriorating salts such as sodium chloride and sodium sulphate crystallization cycles. Polysaccharides and proteins in the plant extract interact with the calcium hydroxide of slaked lime and forms complexes. Hence the, natural polymer has increased the durability of hydraulic lime mortars used for repair and it could be a natural alternative to synthetic admixture. © 2018, © 2018 Taylor &amp; Francis.

World University root node

Department of Structural and Geotechical Engineering

Vellore Campus

International Journal of Architectural Heritage

Effect of natural polymers from cissus glauca roxb on the mechanical and durability properties of hydraulic lime mortar

VIT Unitversity

Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Ground Improvement

Influence of fibres on volume change attributes of expansive soil blended with lime

The arrangement of small sized molecules with a scaffold structure plays an active role in the fields of sensors and health care.

Department of Chemistry

School of Advanced Sciences

Fulltext

RSC Advances

Fused pyrazole-phenanthridine based dyads: synthesis, photo-physical and theoretical studies, and live cell pH imaging

Dyes are developing as a dangerous category of toxins to the ecosystem. The discharge of dyes in aquatic system has horrible health and esthetic impacts, needs to be expelled from nature. In this review article, authors displayed up-to-date advancement on use of ultrasonic-assisted adsorption in elimination of textile dyes from wastewater. This starts with a discussion about dyes, toxicity and its classification. It delivers broad literature evidence on acoustic cavitation and physical effects of ultrasound followed by an overview of the key information available on this technique in dye adsorption. The parameters that influence the efficacy of ultrasonic-assisted dye adsorption incorporates the temperature, pH, initial dye concentration, adsorbent dosage, sonication time, frequency, power and ionic strength. Unlike initial pH, dispersion, formation of cavitational bubbles and sponge effect influenced the process significantly. Improved mass transfer by eliminating internal resistance enhanced the adsorption. The values of half-life period and half-capacity concentration indicates less number of stages and adsorbent in ultrasonic-assisted dye adsorption. The application of this hybrid technique at larger level is highly feasible by considering low use of material, water, energy and time. This survey is proposed to be a source box for the use of ultrasonication on dye adsorption. © 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology

A critical review on ultrasonic-assisted dye adsorption: Mass transfer, half-life and half-capacity concentration approach with future industrial perspectives

Self-compacting concrete (SCC) is a particular type of concrete that flows and becomes consolidated under its own weight. Various have been conducted to enhance its performance. Key developments have been the addition of fibers and replacement of the mineral admixtures; several studies have focused on varying these factors in different proportions to produce a high performance concrete. However, there is no standard mix design for self-compacting concrete containing admixtures. Therefore, optimization of the mix design is very important in order to save time and to develop an economical SCC, but there has been no detailed study of mix design and optimization of materials, and no research into the alignment and orientation of the steel fibers. Along with the uniform dispersion of fibers, few steps have been taken to optimally align the micro steel fibers, with ultrasonic pulse velocity used to justify their distribution and alignment. These factors were taken into consideration in this study. The results show that the addition of steel fibers reduces the rheological properties of the concrete by 40%-55% compared to the control mix (MC1), although all the mixtures (MC1-MX4) justified the guidelines set by EFNARC (European Federation of National Association Representing for Concrete). All the specimens failed under shear. The addition of hooked-end micro steel increased the flexural strength compared to the control mixture and a 60% increase in MX4 and 75% increase in MA7 were observed compared to MC1. The fibers were aligned along the direction of flow and the alignment properties was justified by flexural strength and UPV. A regression equation was finally developed between flexural strength and UPV for future development, which predicts the behavior of micro steel fiber reinforced self-compacting concrete (MSFRSCC). © IJTech 2019.

International Journal of Technology

Analysis of the alignment of micro-steel fibers in admixture- based self-compacting concrete (MSFR-SCC) using NDT and evaluation of its effect on the modulus of rupture

Buildings constructed in seismic prone areas must satisfy the limit state design criteria and inter-storey drift limitations. In recent years, importance of considering soil-structure interaction in the seismic analysis and design of building frames was addressed by various researchers. This study aims to investigate the effects of soil-pile-structure interaction on the behavior of moment resisting frames resting on sand. Numerical analysis was performed on a 10 storey midrise reinforced concrete building using a finite element program PLAXIS3D. The base shear was distributed to all storeys by using equivalent static method. Denseness of soil and spacing of piles were considered as parameters for the analysis. The elastic seismic response of the building in terms of storey displacement and inter-storey drifts was observed. The normalized storey lateral displacement and inter-storey drift values with fixed base structure were evaluated and presented in this paper. The results indicate that the inter-storey drift and storey lateral displacement are affected significantly by the considered parameters. Thus it is pertinent for the designers and practitioners to consider soil-pile-structure interaction for the analysis and design of building frames. © 2019 Associazione Geotecnica Italiana, Rome, Italy.

Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering for Protection and Development of Environment and Constructions- Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, 2019

Numerical investigation on seismic response of moment resisting rc building frames resting on sand considering soil-pile-structure interaction

Marble is widely used in structures, it increases the amount of waste powder obtained. As marble powder is a waste product obtained during the process of sawing and shaping of marble by marble rocks which contains heavy metals that makes the water unfit for use. Since marble powder has cementing property it can be used in concrete as partial replacement of cement. In this study, waste marble powder has been collected from the industry and its effect on the concrete mix has been investigated by incorporating marble dust as partial replacement of cement as 10%, 15% and 20%. Steel fibres in different proportion such as 0%, 0.5% and 1% were added by volume of concrete. Mechanical properties such as compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and flexural strength were determined for all the combinations of marble powder and steel fibre. Durability properties such as drying shrinkage and sorptivity were determined and the obtained results were compared with control concrete. Further, using Taguchi based grey relational analysis optimisation of marble powder and steel fibre was carried out. © 2019 Associated Cement Companies Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Indian Concrete Journal

Influence of marble powder and steel fibre in concrete on various mechanical and durability properties

Land cover information is essential data required by urban planners and policy makers to understand existing development and to protect natural resources in a city or town. With the availability of high resolution satellite images from Sentinel-2A, it is now possible to prepare accurate land cover maps and the present study is an attempt in this direction. An approach based on unsupervised classification plus a post-classification editing (recoding) by referring to Google satellite images is proposed in this study and has been tested for the city of Chennai, India. An unsupervised classification using ISODATA technique with 150 clusters and 36 iterations was carried out first and then Google satellite images were used on the background to assign each cluster to a particular land cover type. The proposed approach is very promising as the overall accuracy was found to be 96% with Kappa coefficient of 0.94. It was found that the proposed approach performs well when compared to the supervised and object based classification. The land cover map from Sentinel-2A was compared with the topographical map of 1971 and it was found that there was a fourfold increase in built-up area over the years. Built-up area was induced to develop in proximity to important highways in Chennai as ribbon type of sprawl is noticed. The results showed that the availability of green space is only 7.626 m 2 per person in Chennai against the recommended value of 9 m 2 . It was also found that almost 6 km 2 of water bodies have disappeared in Chennai and buildings were constructed over them illegally. The government should ensure proper land use planning and control built-up area development in order to protect the natural resources in the city. © 2019, Faculty of Environment and Resource Studies,Mahidol University. All rights reserved.

Environment and Natural Resources Journal

Urban Land Cover Mapping and Change Detection Analysis Using High Resolution Sentinel-2A Data

PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS AND STRUCTURES FOR CIVIL INFRASTRUCTURES (SMSCI2019)

Experimental investigation of strength properties of red mud concrete

AbstractPresent study focuses on measurement, prediction and mapping of noise levels in important places of Vellore city located in Tamil Nadu state, India. Weekday and weekend noise levels at six locations (S1 to S6) are recorded during morning, afternoon and evening times. Sampling locations includes educational (S1), commercial (S2 and S4), tourist and recreational (S3), and mixed (S5 and S6) zones. Assessment in Vellore city showed maximum Leq level in S4 and S5 and lowest is recorded in S3 throughout the study. Highest Leq levels are recorded in evening (57.52–78.41 dB(A)) and afternoon (58.76–76.39 dB(A)) time during weekday and weekend, respectively. Along with Leq, noise descriptors are also included and discussed in this study. Weekend has higher mean value of TNI thanWeekday. CoRTN model is employed to predict the L10 values. Results showed good performance of model with marginal difference between measured and predicted L10 levels. Further noise maps are created separately for weekday and weekend using ArcGIS software. Noise maps showed alarming noise levels near sampling sites and it is suggested to take immediate preventive measures using barriers or by providing alternative traffic routes.