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

Department of Architecture

An airport and its region have a mutual interaction. Thus, the airport's performance is crucial for its region. Moreover, airport's performance is influenced by air transport network. The measurement of the quality and capacity of the air transport network is multifaceted. The study assesses an airport's network in terms of its type, accessibility and connectivity. It focusses on 12 Tier-II Indian cities having medium-hub international airports because of their huge growth potential and under-addressed assessment. Furthermore, it is in coherence with the current policies of boosting regional air connectivity. Specific analyses for Tier-II cities' airports is important as a comparison with the bigger metropolises will be skewed. This exploration puts special emphasis on their relationship with the Tier-I cities as the connectivity of Indian airports is majorly complementary than competitive. Measures used for assessment are concentration indices, graph theory-based connectivity and accessibility indices (shortest path length and quickest time length) and partial accessibility indicators (daily accessibility, potential indicator, location indicator and network efficiency). Modifications and synthesis of partial indicators are also attempted. Annual data sets for the financial year 2017–18 and real-time data from 25–July 31, 2018 are used and the analysis was carried out from April–August 2018. The study identifies future potential (hubs/feeders) among the Tier-II cities' airports and proposes to align policies accordingly. The results illustrate the need for more strong hubs in northern India and reveal the potential of Amritsar, Calicut and Trichy of becoming future regional hubs.

School of Architecture

Vellore Campus

World University root node

Transport Policy

Network assessment of Tier-II Indian cities' airports in terms of type, accessibility and connectivity

The historical fort of Bhatner at Hanumangarh, Rajasthan in India was built around 1700years ago using burnt clay bricks with lime mortar. This fort complex has three gateway adorned with arches and tri-arch colonnaded spaces.These gateway structures are significantly distressed and several cracks on arches and vaults of gateway possibly are observed. The current paper presents a detailed geotechnical and structural investigation to find out the root cause of the distress in the fort. For geotechnical Investigation, the methodology followed for the geotechnical test comprises of appropriate sub- soil exploration including field investigation at 4 bore hole locations and relevant laboratory tests on soil samples for determining allowable bearing pressure of the soil. In structural investigation, settlement analysis has been performed on the 3D Finite element model of the fort considering gravity load and earth pressure on the fort wall using TNO DIANA software package. The study concludes that the distresses shown on the structure especially at Gateway 2 and 3 are due to soil settlement. Copyright © Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, ARC 2019.All rights reserved.

16th Asian Regional Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, ARC 2019

Damage assessment of an ancient fort in India

Urban Ecology

Assessing the role of urban design in a rapidly urbanizing historical city and its contribution in restoring its urban ecology: the case of Varanasi, India

The multi-storied masonry “Gopuram” or the ceremonial entrance gateway, an ubiquitous structure in a South Indian temple, was a feature introduced circa 14thÂ c. AD in order to confer architectural status to structurally insignificant ancient shrines. The gopurams of the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai (1600 AD), the Ranganathaswamy Temple in Srirangam (17thÂ c. AD) and the Ekambareswar Temple in Kancheepuram (16thÂ c. AD), 52Â m, 72Â m and 59Â m tall, respectively, are representative of the highly evolved Dravidian temple architecture. The current research is an attempt to understand the structural behaviour of the gopuram with a focus on a centuries-old incomplete structure in the town of Thiruvellarai in Tamil Nadu. The paper presents outcomes of detailed field and laboratory investigations on the sub-structure, the superstructure and structural materials of the gopuram, that provide insight into the structural configuration of the gopuram. It then examines the structural response to gravity and lateral forces, throughÂ non-linear finite element models of the structure. One of the significant aspects studied is the role of the core masonry in the structural response of the multi-leaf masonry structure of the gopuram. In addition the role of floor diaphragms in the structural stability of the gopuram is investigated. The outcome of the study is expected to provide important insights to the reasons for structural distress and collapse of such structures, particularly the Vijayagopuram at Srikalahasti in Andhra Pradesh in South India that collapsed in May 2010. © 2019, RILEM.

RILEM Bookseries

Structural Behaviour of Gopurams in South Indian Temples

The Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of the President of India, is a Grade-I heritage structure. The reinforced concrete cantilever sunshades in this building are at a height of about 20 m above ground and span about two-kilometer along the perimeter of the building. In the late 1990s, some sunshades experienced corrosion and were repaired using polymer modified cementitious mortar. However, these repaired sunshades and others are now exhibiting severe corrosion and concrete spalling- posing a serious falling hazard for visitors and inhabitants. This paper presents a systematic evaluation of the concrete used in the sunshades and the assessment of corrosion and structural conditions of the sunshades. Concrete was found to be made of non-hydraulic lime and carbonated - indicating high probability of corrosion. Hence, about 200 sunshade locations from various parts of the building were visually and non-destructively assessed and distress-maps were developed. For this, an instrumented hammer was used on 15 test points per sunshade panel area (of about 1 × 2Â m size). Based on the impulse waveform patterns, estimated strengths and visible damage, the panels were classified into distress levels of negligible, moderate and severe. About 58 to 86% of the sunshades were found to be severely damaged. Also, service level load test was conducted (upto a load of 75Â kN) at a representative location, to assess the effect of corrosion on the load-deflection behaviour of the cantilever. The possible repair strategy and challenges associated with adopting conventional methods, are discussed in the paper. © 2019, RILEM.

Restoration of Reinforced Lime Concrete Sunshades of aÂ CenturyÂ OldÂ Heritage Building in New Delhi, India

The city of Pondicherry located on the Eastern coast of India is adorned with rich cultural heritage from the pre-historic to the modern colonial era. The monuments built during the French colonial rule still exist and are in use. A considerable effort in the field of cultural heritage preservation has been undertaken by the Government of Pondicherry, ably supported by organizations such as INTACH. Programmes such as Asia -Urbs helped in preserving the architectural heritage of Pondicherry. The collapse of La Mairie de Pondicherry on 29 November 2014 brought forth issues related to previous conservation efforts. An overall understanding of the structural typology, material deterioration and distress is essential in understanding the reasons for the collapse of La Mairie de Pondicherry and is crucial to ensure the structural health of similar structural typologies in Pondicherry and for developing an appropriate structural conservation protocol for these buildings.

Tekton A Journal of Architecture, Planning and Urban Design

Wall Morphology in Historic Buildings in Pondicherry

Urbanisation as a phenomenon has existed since long. By 2050 almost 70 $\backslash${\%} of world's population will live in cities, hence a demand for more efficient urban systems. With many trends coming up on the urbanisation front, from `liveable cities' to `inclusive urban growth', the latest concern is of `smart cities'. As an umbrella concept, smart cities have three subparts: human intelligence, collective intelligence and artificial intelligence (ICT), of which the latter is taking up the major limelight. While assessing India's urban conditions, it can be gauged out that there are various prerequisites before embedding ICT into the system. This paper attempts to redefine the smart city concept in Indian perspective reviewed through the lens of human + collective intelligence. Varanasi which has been proposed as one of the smart cities to be developed would be taken as a case study. Varanasi, being synonymous to living continuity of traditions and deep culture, possesses a legacy of institutions for learning and innovation. However, rapid and haphazard urbanisation has disturbed the delicate balance between the city's various facets thereby making it a living laboratory for carrying out the `smart' urban experiments. The paper takes up a holistic approach for evolving the smart city criteria and intends to define it on the basis of prioritisation models. The approach used in this paper for the purpose of analytics is `interpretive structural modelling (ISM)'.