Government Engineering Colleges in Assam: Current Status and Steps for Improvement

The State Government has well understood the demand of technical education in the state and attention is focused on rapid development in this field, with global professional standards and international accreditation being recognised as the benchmarks for quality assurance. In this regard, it is important to understand an accord called “The Washington Accord”. This is an international agreement to ensure consistent quality of undergraduate engineering program across the World. Programs recognised by accrediting authorities in countries that are signatories are considered to be equivalent in terms of quality and the graduate attributes. In 2014, the National Board of Accreditation (NBA) India joined as a signatory for programs accredited by NBA offered by education providers accepted by NBA as Tier 1 institutions. In February 2015, the Government of Assam appointed an expert team from the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Curtin University Australia to conduct an audit of technical education in the public sector. The purpose of the audit was to find the gaps that may exist in governance, curriculum, policies, guidelines and community engagement in relation to those to be required and found in a Washington Accord approved programme. This paper summarises some of the gaps. This is followed by recommendations to improve the technical education sector in Assam. The findings in the gap analysis are the first in a series of steps toward the long-awaited restructuring of the technical higher education sector in the state of Assam. It is now up to the Government of Assam to take the necessary steps in addressing the issues to re-energise the technical higher education sector and bring the public technical colleges to the forefront of quality Indian institutions offering international standard engineering education and infrastructure

Adaptation to the Future Climate: A Low Carbon Building Design Challenge

In this paper an attempt has been made to assess the performance of an office building located in London (one of the case study buildings in CIBSE TM36: 2005) in relation to energy consumption, carbon emissions and potential for adaptability to the 2050s climate. Overheating is a particular issue in office buildings due to internal heat gains from computers and other electrical equipment. In addition, buildings in London are affected by the urban heat island, which is likely to intensify with warmer summer temperatures, reducing the capacity for night-time cooling of buildings. This paper proposes various passive design strategies which aim to address both mitigation (by reducing carbon emissions) and adaptation (by improving human comfort and reducing energy consumption)

Shear strengthening of reinforced concrete continuous beams

This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation to evaluate the contribution of carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer sheets in enhancing the shear strength of continuous reinforced concrete beams. A total of five, two-span concrete continuous beams with rectangular cross-section were tested. One beam without strengthening was used as the control and the other four beams were strengthened with different arrangements of polymer sheets. The variables selected were various wrapping schemes and anchorage length of the polymer sheet. The aim was to develop a better understanding of the shear contribution of polymer and to investigate the potential for cost savings by minimising the area of externally bonded polymer sheets. Test results were compared with four existing shear prediction models available in the literature. The results indicate that the polymer sheet significantly enhanced the shear strength of the beams, and that the area of polymer sheet can be minimised with marginal compromise on the shear carrying capacity of strengthened concrete beams

Reducing CO2 emissions in a typical 60 years old detached house in London

In this paper an attempt has been made to provide the best options for renewable energy and low carbon technologies to reduce CO2 emissions from a detached house built in1950 located in London. The options for energy efficiency measures—photovoltaic, solar thermal, wind turbine, ground source heat pump, Gas CHP—have been evaluated on the basis of energy and CO2 savings and technical viability. The main conclusions derived from this study are summarised in this paper

Thermal comfort and energy consumption in a UK educational building

Educational buildings are responsible for a large amount of UK’s non-industrial energy consumption. Hence, it is important not to overlook their energy performance. The primary aim of this study was to investigate how the ventilation strategy of a typical educational building in the UK will affect the energy consumption and to what extent this will impact the thermal comfort of the occupants. The building investigated is Loughborough University’s Civil & Building Engineering building. Data from monitoring indoor temperature and lighting levels are used to discuss the trends in thermal and visual comfort respectively. The simulations results from IES are used to compare the reduction in the energy consumption. It was found that the Ground Floor offices had the problem of indoor temperatures remaining below the lower limit of 19 C. The average working plane illuminance in winter was below the CIBSE limit of 300 lux for office spaces. The thermal comfort was not adequately achieved during the occupied hours during winter in the three Second Floor offices. Therefore, it is recommended that strategies like better integration of the entrance of the building with the interior spaces and adopting dimming profile for lighting control can help in reducing the energy consumption significantly

Nanomechanical Characterization of Cement-Based Materials

Nanoindentation technique is used to assess the mechanical properties of materials at nano-level. A very small tip (usually diamond) produces indents at the surface of the material to be tested. A load vs. deflection curve is generated and is used to study the elastic properties of materials. Generally, it is used for obtaining the hardness and Young’s modulus of materials at nano-meter scale. Currently, the method to evaluate the mechanical properties by nanoindentation is restricted to homogeneous materials. Cement-based materials are heterogeneous in nature. Therefore, nanoindentation study of cement-based materials is critical and requires several important steps, which need to be performed accurately. This chapter provides a review of the theory of nanoindentation, instruments being used for nanoindentation, sample preparation techniques, indentation strategy, and determination of nanomechanical properties and data analysis for cement-based materials

Effects of fly ash and dolomite powder on the properties of self-compacting concrete

Fly ash and limestone powder are found to be the traditional materials to be used in controlling the segregation potential and deformability of fresh SCC. This research deals with the utilisation of an alternative material, dolomite powder, instead of limestone powder, for the production of SCC. Test results indicated that it is possible to manufacture SCC using fly ash and dolomite powder. The mix containing fly ash and dolomite powder in the ratio 3:1 was found to satisfy the requirements suggested by the European Federation of Producers and Contractors of Specialist Products for Structures (EFNARC) guide for making SCC. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

A Critical Review on the Utilization of Fly Ash in Concrete Production

Fly ash, a by-product from thermal power stations, has been used successfully to replace Portland cement up to 30% by mass, without adversely affecting the strength and durability of concrete. In some cases, large volume of fly ash (>40%) is used to achieve the desired concrete properties and lower the cost of concrete production. The fly ash concrete system offers a holistic approach that can help us to achieve the goals of meeting the rising demands for concrete, enhancement of concrete durability with little or no increase in cost (in some instances reduced cost), and ecological disposal of large quantities of the solid waste products from coal-fired power plants. Several laboratory and field investigations involving concrete containing fly ash had reported to exhibit excellent mechanical and durability properties. However, due its conservative nature the construction industry is still not fully utilizing the potential benefits of using fly ash in concrete production. This paper reviews first the origin, properties and current knowledge of fly ash as reported in the literature. This is followed by a discussion on the works done by various researchers on the utilisation of fly ash in concrete production and the potential issues related to their use. Finally, areas of further research have been identified

Thermal comfort and energy use in UK School buildings

This paper presents the results of an investigation on the effects of making changes to the design parameters of a generic school building. The design options are evaluated in order to study the performance of the building in terms of thermal comfort and energy use using two interventions under different climatic conditions (London and Stockholm). The building simulation is carried out using the IES software package and the thermal comfort metrics as defined in CIBSE Guide A. The summertime comfort and overheating have been evaluated on the basis of Building Bulletin - BB101. The findings demonstrate that combination of various design parameter scan help in reducing the effects of overheating in both the climates

Applications of nanomaterials in construction industry

© 2017, IGI Global. All rights reserved. The application of nanomaterials in various applied fields has gained worldwide recognition. Nanomaterials have the ability to manipulate the structure at nano-scale. This leads to the generation of tailored and multifunctional composites with improved mechanical and durability performance. Recognizing this, the construction industry recently has started to use a variety of nanomaterials. The use of these materials is found to improve various fundamental characteristics of construction materials including the strength, durability, and lightness. In this chapter an attempt is made to review the use of various nanomaterials in cementitous system. This is followed by a discussion of the challenges related to their use. Finally, the strategies for using nanomaterials in construction industry for the next ten years are identified