Title: Demonstration of Sacrificial Anodes usage in Reinforced Concrete

A guest talk was arranged as part of the CEA seminar series delivered by Mr. Dhruvesh Shah and Mr. Zameel from Vector Corrosion Technologies. The lecture discussed the estimation of sacrificial anodes for a given RC element, its installation along with usage and methods available to check the efficiency of these sacrificial anodes. After the talk, the speaker interacted with the research students from CTaM and provided valuable inputs for their work.

Title: How do we leverage Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) in projects to increase efficiency and enable predictable outcomes?

A guest talk was arranged as part of the CEA seminar series delivered by Prof. Martin Fischer, Director of Center for Integrated Facilities Engineering Laboratory (CIFE), Stanford University, US. The lecture discussed the need and theoretical foundations of the Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) methods in the Construction sector. After the talk, the speaker interacted with the research students from CTaM and provided valuable inputs for their work.

Title: Durability and Sustainability are the keys to High Performance of Concrete Structures

A guest talk was arranged as part of the CEA seminar series delivered by Prof. Cyrus M Dordi, Ex-Adjunct Faculty, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay. The lecture discussed the design philosophy of High performance concrete (HPC) with special emphasis on the selection of right sizes and proportions of materials through concepts of particle packing and rheology. Further, the durability and sustainability aspects of HPC are also discussed.

Title: Overview of Cementitious Materials Research at the Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Lab in Clemson University

A guest talk was arranged as part of the CEA seminar series delivered by Prof. Prasad Rangaraju, Professoor, Clemson University. The leacture presented the wide range of research areas being explored at the SMaRT lab and also presented many avenues for research like 3D printing technology to patching up bridges. The faculty interacted with the research students after the talk and provided valuable inputs for their work.

Guest Talk on Understanding Influence of Input Variables for Improved Estimates of Service Life for Reinforced Concrete Systems

A guest talk was arranged as part of the CEA seminar series delivered by Dr. David Trejo, Professor, School of Civil and Construction Engineering, Oregon State University, US. The lecture discussed the need to standardize the input variables to improve estimates of service life of RC systems. It primarily discussed about the limitations of existing models in current literature related to service life prediction and presented some new developments in this research domain. Prior to the talk the speaker visited the material testing and characterization labs of IIT Bombay and interacted with the research students in these labs and provided valuable inputs for their work. Overall the visit of Dr. Trejo who has about 10 years of experience in the field and and 20 years of teaching/research experience helped students in understanding the need to emphasize on real world applications and research in the domain of materials and systems.

Guest Talk Intelligent Planning and Capacity Building for Resilient Cities of the Future

A guest talk was arranged as part of the CEA seminar series delivered by Dr. Makarand Hastak, Ph.D., P.E., CCP, CRIS, Professor and the Dernlan Family Head of Construction Engineering & Management, Professor of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, USA. The talk emphasized the importance of cities to consider identifying and developing capacities to achieve feasible resilience from future disasters. This presentation covered mainly two aspects

1. Illustrated the interdependencies and the associated capacity needs of infrastructure systems in improving the resilience of a community and
2. Introduced the concept of Intelligent Planning Units (IPUs) for developing smart construction solutions for resilient cities of the future.

Prior to the lecture, the students of CT&M could interact with the speaker for about an hour on research opportunities at Purdue and the future of construction management research. Overall it was a great opportunity for the students to learn and understand certain key aspects from the speaker who has given 32 years of his life to the industry through consulting, research, teaching, and service to the community

Guest Lecture on major challenges in addressing the fresh properties of modern concrete

A guest lecture on the challenges in addressing fresh properties of modern concrete was delivered by Dr. Manikandan Rajakannu on 3rd October. He has more than 12 years of experience in Cement Industry. The lecture discussed in detail about the practical issues of modern ready mix concrete and the suitable measures to address the issue of slump retention and cement-superplasticizers compatibility. It provided very useful and unique insights to the students related to fresh properties of concrete.

Seminar on Concrete Durability

A seminar on concrete durability was jointly organized by Indian Concrete Institute (ICI) and the Department of Civil Engineering IIT Bombay and was sponsored by Ultra Tech Cement Ltd. The ICI constituted the Durability Committee consisting of leading concrete technologists from India and abroad and mandated it that a “Handbook on Concrete Durability” should be published incorporating the latest trends for the benefits of practising engineers, structural designers, material manufacturers, architects, builders, government agencies, etc. After strenuous work of some four long years, the Durability Committee has finally come out with the Handbook. The main objective of the One-day Seminar was to acquaint the participants with the main contents of the handbook and while doing so have some useful interaction on the subject. The main contents and speakers of the seminar were on the following topics namely -

• Concrete Durability (Er. Vijay Kulkarni);
• Durability design and specification: Prescriptive Vs. Performance Approaches (Prof Manu Santhanam);
• Durability requirements of concrete ingredients (Prof P Dinkar);
• Major deterioration phenomenon and transport mechanisms (Dr BS Dhanya);
• Critical evaluation of test methods on durability (Prof R G Pillai);
• Examples of Structures adopting durability-based specifications (Dr K. Sivakumar)

The deliberations during the seminar were of great value to all those involved in the use of structural concrete such as practicing civil engineers, consulting engineers, architects, engineers from government and semi-government bodies, project management consultants, material producers, builders, contractors, academicians and students.

Guest Lecture on Strengthening and Stabilisation

A guest lecture on strengthening and stabilisation was delivered by Mr. Mahesh Tendulkar in which strengthening practices performed on a site for raft foundation and columns were described. He also elaborated the challenges for execution which provided valuable insights to the students.

Guest Lecture on Waterproofing

A lecture on Waterproofing was conducted by BASF as part of the construction rehabilitation course. It covered aspects of proactive and curative measures for the waterproofing of the superstructure of buildings.

Guest Lecture on Contracts Management and Dispute resolution

A lecture on contracts management and dispute resolution was delivered by guest speaker Mr. Hari Easwaran, Head Contracts and Procurement Division Head in L&T Ltd . It was very insightful to the students with the vast experience shared by the speaker in this domain.

Guest Lecture on Steel Construction

A lecture was conducted by Jindal steel Ltd on Steel Construction - Opportunities and Future. It provided the students an insight about the existing scenario in India and prospects of growth of the industry.

Guest Lecture on Quality and Safety in Construction

A lecture on quality and safety in construction was delivered by guest speaker Mr. N Radhakrishnan, EHS Head Tata Projects Ltd Mumbai Trans-harbour Link . He shared his 40 years experience in the domain of safety with the students. He specifically addressed the aspects about how safety is implemented in construction projects and how safety auditing is typically carried out in construction sector.

Seminar on Cathodic Protection in association with IIT Madras and Vector Corrossion Technologies

A seminar was conducted on cathodic Protection of concrete structures in IIT Bomaby in association with IIT Madras and Vector Corrosion Technologies. The seminar was conducted to educate our engineers on how to assess and control corrosion in concrete structures.

Seminar on Formwork & Scaffolding By PERI (India)

A seminar was conducted on Formwork which is one of the important components of construction by PERI India.The speaker for the event was Mr. Rahul Bharadwaj. The seminar covered various design aspects and applications of modern formwork system and was a rare opportunity for students to understand the field.

Guest Lecture on Concrete Pumping by Schwing Stetter India

A lecture was conducted on Concrete Pumping by Schwing Stetter India.

Guest Lecture on Injection Technology for Underground Tunnel

Mr. Sujit Kar of MC-Bauchemie (India) Pvt. Ltd conducted a lecture on Injection Technology for Underground Tunnel .