AHMEDABAD: A serious effort to scale down costs of the construction of the elevated metro rail corridor is on at the moment. A team of engineers is employing a unique construction technique while constructing the pillars of the elevated corridor at Koba circle in Gandhinagar, which, if successful, can cut costs by at least Rs 2,500 crore.
On the metro route of 48 kilometres, a total of approximately 1,600 pillars would be required involving a major component of the costs of the Rs 12,000 crore project.
Instead of employing a group piers or pillars of 1.1 metre diametre each clubbed together, MEGA engineers are experimenting with a monopile support of 2.4 metre on which a mono pillar will be raised for the corridor. The Bangalore metro project has employed this technique successfully. The monopile has been successful for the Dubai metro rail and in a south east country, according to MEGA officials.
A31-metre deep monopile at low level has been dug at the Koba circle supported by hydraulic jacks with sensors on its base. tnnThe concrete is being curated for 27 days and pressures measuring up to several thousands of tonnes will be applied from the top. This will help the engineers study the stress levels that the pier support can take with respect to the soil of that area.
“The single mono pier technique is safe, does not compromise on structural stability and comes in handy when we have to cut on the time for construction in metro projects. In this construction, most single piers are supported on 2.2m and 2.4m diametre bored monopiles,” says a senior MEGA official. More info
