Pramesh S Jain & Yogesh K Porwar
I
ndia’s premier road research institute CSIR-Central Road Research Institute has joined hand with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to fix the potholes of Bengaluru city road.
City of Bengaluru is facing problems of recurring potholes,which is causing traffic congestion,leading to road accidents.
To address this challenge India’s premier road research
institute CSIR-CRRI in collaboration with BBMP and RAMUKA GLOBAL SERVICES has successfully carried out a pilot project of steel slag based ECOFIX technology by fixing the potholes on Avenue road near Anjani temple,Bengaluru.
ECOFIX is utilised to fix the deep and shallow potholes under a live demonstration project to BBMP engineers of Govt.of Karnataka on one of the busiest road of Bengaluru city.
On this occasion the inventor of the technology Dr. Satish Pandey,Principal Scientist,CSIR-CRRI has informed that the as per the direction of Chief Secretary of Govt.Of Karnataka Dr.Shalini Rajneesh,CSIR-CRRI has carried out the demonstration trial of this eco-friendly technology on BBMP road for instant repair of potholes.
ECOFIX is developed using industrial waste of steel industries i.e iron and steel slag and has the unique ability to repair the water logged pothole without any dewatering requirement.
Conventional road repair technologies require dewatering of pothole and application of tack coat while ECOFIX can be applied even under water logged condition without any tack coat requirement.
Repaired road surface was opened immediately for traffic movement.
In terms of durability and longevity the repaired surface will perform better than the regular road as the ECOFIX is prepared using processed iron and steel slag aggregates and specially.
customised binder.CSIR-CRRI Steel slag road technology is already well tested in terms of durability and performance in various states of the country comprising state of Gujarat,Jharkhand,Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh.
On this occasion Dr.B.S.Prahallad,Engineer-In-Chief BBMP congratulated the CSIR-CRRI team on successful trial of the technology on avenue road and informed that the BBMP has successfully tested the technology via this pilot project and will utilise this for eco-friendly sustainable road repair on the city roads.
He further added that during monsoon season when
majority of hot mix plant cannot be operated,ECOFIX technology will be the boon to the city roads to carry out durable road repair in eco-friendly manner.
India is world’s second largest steel producer and generates around 19 million tons of steel slag annually as solid waste and this quantity is expected to reach 60 million tons per annum by the end of 2030.
Utilisation of ECOFIX will pave the way for sustainable waste utilisation in the country by carrying out eco-friendly road maintenance and will also reduce the unsustainable mining of natural aggregates causing serious impacts on our ecosystem.
As application of ECOFIX is without any heating need of aggregate and bitumen hence it’s also significantly lowers the GHG emission in the atmosphere caused by regular road maintenance technique.
