The Department of Civil Engineering of Bangalore University, located at ‘Jnana Bharathi’ campus - Bangalore, offers Post Graduate courses in fields of Construction Technology, Environmental Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Highway Engineering, Prestressed Concrete, Structural Engineering and Water Resources Engineering.

Post Graduate course in Highway Engineering leading to M.E. (Civil) degree was started at the Department of Civil Engineering during the academic year 1974-75. Today this division provides excellent facilities for advanced research work in the areas of Highway, Traffic and Transportation Engineering. With the support of the Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (Govt. of India), Centre for Transportation Engineering (COTE) was formed by the year 1992 and the infrastructure was developed with the grants received.

During the past two decades, this Section has emerged as a leader in this discipline with a strong nucleus in research and development programmes supported by State and Central Government agencies like Ministry of Surface Transport, Ministry of Human Resource Development, University Grants Commission and the All India Council for Technical Education.

The laboratories of Highway Engineering Section are adequately equipped with some of the latest and modern testing equipment and instruments for material characterisation, design and evaluation of pavements and for conducting traffic-engineering studies. The graduate students and research scholars extensively use these laboratory facilities. Several special equipment and instruments have been designed, developed and fabricated at this department with the assistance of the local industry.

The Highway Engineering Section has also undertaken collaborative research programmes with reputed institutions in India and abroad. In addition, high-level consultancy services are being rendered to various government and private organisations in the country. One of the greatest achievements of the Section is the joint research studies, particularly, the number of test track studies which have been taken up in collaboration with the Public Works and National Highways Departments of Karnataka State.

Learn more about Highway Engineering Section by reading the enclosed sheets:

• Faculty Members of the Section
• Major Research Facilities
• Major Research Schemes
• Test Track Studies
• Equipment Designed and Fabricated
• Ph.D. Work Completed
• Major Consultancy Projects
• Our Tomorrow

Faculty Members of the Section

1. Dr. C.E.G. Justo Emeritus Fellow & Honorary Professor

Total experience of over 40 years in teaching, research and technical consultancy. Co-ordinator of four Research Schemes of Ministry of Transport (Roads Wing) R-6, R-18, R-26 and R-41 and also Research Projects, (i) `Road Safety' (ii) Pavement Deterioration Modelling (iii) Centre for Transportation Engineering and (iv) Transport Research Laboratory sponsored by Ministry of HRD and Research Project on `Prioritisation of Pavements Maintenance' sponsored by the AICTE. Designed and developed several new equipment for research.

Actively engaged in major field studies and research on topics such as (i) Structural Evaluation of pavements and overlay design (ii) Surface Condition Evaluation of Pavements (iii) Test Track Studies on pavement performance, evaluation of equivalency factors of pavement component layers (iv) Investigation on Failures of highway and airport Pavements (v) Studies on Pavement Deterioration Models and Pavement Maintenance Management Systems (vi) Studies of Mixed Traffic Characteristics and roadway improvement schemes (vii) Traffic Management scheme. Have been guiding various research scholars for Ph.D and eight have been awarded Ph.D degree. Published over 55 research papers and two books. Awarded the Indian Roads Congress - Bihar PWD Medal for outstanding paper on research; Indian Roads Congress C.P.W.D. Medal for the Best Paper on Pavement Maintenanc,e Indian Roads Congress Commendation Certificates for two papers. Member of various technical committees of the Indian Roads Congress and CRRI and is expert member in various Advisory Panels and Task Force of the Government of Karnataka.

2. Dr. R Sathyamurthy Professor

Total experience of over 33 years in teaching, research and technical consultancy. Co-ordinator of R-41 Research Scheme of Ministry of Transport (Roads Wing). Actively engaged in non-destructive testing of pavements/materials, stress analysis due to wheel load system, Visco-elastic behaviour of pavements, investigations on failure of flexible pavements, soil investigation and design of bridges. Guiding Research Projects and Ph.D Scholars. Published over 30 research papers. Guided Ph.D scholars and three scholars were awarded Ph.D degree.

3. Dr. Krishna Murthy B.Sc., B.E. , M.E., Ph.D. Reader

Total experience of over 25 years in teaching, Research and Technical consultation. Joint Co-ordinator of R-18 Research Scheme of Ministry of Transport (Roads Wing). Actively engaged in surface condition evaluation of road pavements including measurement of pavement undulations, skid resistance and rating techniques and development of models for Present Serviceability Index/Rating for Maintenance Management of Road Pavements. Designed and developed a Multiple Wheel Unevenness Integrator for the measurement of realistic value of unevenness index, free from the drawbacks of conventional Bump Integrator. Published four research papers. Guiding Ph.D scholars; Special experience in road construction and management quality assurance.

4. Dr. A. Veeraragavan Reader

Total experience of over 20 years in teaching, research and technical consultation. Co-ordinated seven major research projects with a budget of Rs.65 lakhs which includes R-6 Research Scheme of Ministry of Surface Transport; Research Projects on `Road Safety Problems Under Mixed Traffic Flow' and `Development of Deterioration Models for Flexible Pavements', sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India and Research Project on `Methodology for Prioritisation of Highway Pavements for Maintenance Management', Development of Accelerated Load Testing Facility for Pavements and Low Cost Engineering Measures to Reduce Vehicular Accidents sponsored by the All Indian Council for Technical Education. Actively engaged in Structural Evaluation of Road Pavements by Benkelman Beam Rebound Deflection Studies; Engaged in Test Track Studies on flexible pavements and overlays and Development of Pavement Maintenance Management Model for Rural Highways in India. Organised research studies on Coastal Karnataka Region and Accidents Studies with special reference to Pedestrian Accidents. Published over 65 research papers in International /National Journals and Conferences . Conferred NINE awards which include UGC Career Award for Young Teachers, IRC - Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Award for notable and outstanding contribution in Highway Engineering in the country, IRC-Bihar PWD Medal for Outstanding paper on Road Research; IRC- C.P.W.D Medal for Best Paper on Road Maintenance (Twice); IRC Commendation Certificates (Thrice) and the Indian Society for Technical Education's NATIONAL award for Promising Engineering College Teacher in India (1998). Member of the Highway Research Board, Traffic Engineering Committee and the HRB Road Research Evaluation and Dissemination Committee of the IRC. Guided three research scholars for Ph.D; Member of the Task Force of the Government of Karnataka. Joint Investigator of the DFID, UK International Collaborative Research Study on Urban Safety Management Approach in Collaboration with the Transport Research Laboratory, UK and a member of the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) Programme at Bangalore .

5. Dr. M.S. Amarnath Reader

Total experience of over 20 years in teaching, research and technical consultation. Joint Co-ordinator of R-26 Research Scheme of M.O.S.T. Worked as Scientist at CRRI New Delhi. Actively engaged in studies on properties and behaviour of different pavement component materials and pavement evaluation. Developed an equipment for applying repeated loads on model pavements. Worked on Ph.D. topic `Load Dispersion Characteristics of Granular Pavement Layers'. Published three research papers.

6. Sri. L. Manjesh Lecturer

About 8 years experience in teaching & research in the field of Geosynthetics and their application in the field of Highway Engineering.

7. Sri. G Suresh Lecturer

About 5 years experience in teaching and research in Highway Engineering.

The Highway Engineering Section, is actively engaged in the advanced studies and research in the following fields of Highway, Traffic and Transportation Engineering:

The Highway EngineeringLaboratory of the Section is adequately equipped with some of the latest and modern testing equipment and instruments for material characterisation, design and evaluation of pavements and for conducting Traffic Engineering studies.

Special equipment and instruments have been designed and developed in this Section with the assistance of the local industry. Some of these include a semi-field Test Track with loading facility and instrumentation for Pavement Testing Dual and Dual-tandem Wheel Load Assembly, Pendulum Type and Dynamic Skid Resistance testing equipment, Tracking Task Device, Multiple Wheel Unevenness Integrator Unit, Portable Wheel weigh bridges of capacity 10 and 20 tonnes, Transverse placement recorder for wheel loads, equipment to measure Rebound deflection bowl, Crack Simulator for crack propagation studies, etc.

The Laboratory has the facility for simulating the full scale pavement loading system and also for testing the model pavements with pressure cells, moisture cells and thermocouples installed at suitable locations. An instrumented mobile laboratory consisting of weigh-in-motion system and imported wheel weigh bridges and load man are also available for the field studies. Other latest equipment acquired for teaching, research and consultancy work include equipment to test soils, bituminous materials, aggregates and bituminous mixes viz., Hveem stabilometer and cohesiometer, Smiths Triaxial cell, Hubbard Field Test, Marshall Test, Repeated load Fatigue testing Equipment, Clegg Impact Tester, non- destructive test set up for structural evaluation of flexible pavements, aggregate polishing value tester, fifth wheel bump integrator, digital multi-channel data logger, vibratory roller, etc.

The Laboratory has all modern equipment for Traffic field studies like radar gun for spot speed measurement, Colour Projector Screen, Automatic Pneumatic tube traffic counters, Electronic timer, etc. Other audio-visual systems for traffic flow measurements are also available. Precision measurements of speed, headway and other traffic flow parameters are possible with this highly versatile equipment. The Section has also separate computer room equipped with several computers, printers, plotter, scanner etc.

The Highway Engineering Section has carried out six major test track projects consisting of design, construction, field tests and evaluation of road pavements in collaboration with Karnataka Public Works Department (C & B), National Highways Department, and Ministry of Surface Transport (Roads Wing), Govt. of India, as detailed below. Also technical/research papers were published based on the findings of these Test Track studies and were discussed during the annual sessions of the Indian Roads Congress.

1 Evaluation of Different Sub - base Course Materials : Ten sub stretches each of 100 m length consisting of different sub-base course materials, with one type of base and surface courses, were constructed on black cotton soil subgrade and tested on Hiriyur - Vanivilas Sagar Road in Karnataka State by the P.W.D. (C & B) during 1979-80 at a total cost of about Rs. 2.0 lakhs.

2 Evaluation of Different Flexible Overlays Over Flexible Pavements : Five different overlays on existing flexible pavement on Chord Road, Bangalore constructed by Karnataka P.W.D. (C & B) during 1979 - 80 at a total cost of about Rs. 1..5 lakhs and pavement performance studies were carried out.

3 Evaluation of New Flexible Pavements : Six different combinations of new flexible pavement sections on Tumkur Bypass of N.H. - 4 in Karnataka constructed by the National Highways Department, Karnataka P.W.D. under R - 6 Research Scheme of MOST (Roads Wing) during 1982 - 83 at an approximate cost of Rs. 1.5 lakhs and pavement performance studies were carried out for over eight years.

.4 Evaluation of Different Types and Thicknesses of Overlays on Different Flexible Pavements : Total 21 test stretches of overlays, consisting of two test stretches in Andhra Pradesh, eight in Karnataka, four in Kerala and seven in Tamil Nadu were constructed on National and State Highways by the Public Works Departments of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as a part of the R-6 Research Scheme of the MOST (Roads Wing), being co-ordinated by this Department and pavement performance studies were carried out for over seven years.

5. Evaluation of Bituminous Overlay with Geo-fabric Over Cracked CC Pavement : Bituminous Overlays over cracked cement concrete pavement with and without geo-fabric at interface were constructed on SH-17 Bangalore Mysore road in front of R.V. Engineering College by Karnataka P.W.D. during 1990-91 as part of R-41 Research Scheme of M.O.S.T. (Roads Wing) and pavement performance studies were carried out for about three years
6. Evaluation of Bituminous Overlay with Geo-grid Over Cracked Bituminous Pavement : Bituminous Overlays over cracked bituminous surfaced pavement with and without geo-grid at interface were constructed on SH-17 Bangalore Mysore road between km 25/0 and 26/0 by the Karnataka P.W.D. during 1997 as part of R-41 Research Scheme of M.O.S.T. (Roads Wing) and pavement performance studies were carried out for about two years

• Portable Pendulum Type Skid Resistance Tester (for testing skid resistance of specimens and in-situ testing on pavement surface). This is a new design with telescopic movement of pendulum hammer.

• Dynamic Trailer Type Skid Resistance Tester (for testing skid resistance of pavement at desired speeds under actual pavement surface conditions) using different types of tyres.

• Dynamic Fifth Wheel Type Skid Resistance Tester (for measuring longitudinal and transverse skid resistance values of pavement surface at desired speeds under actual pavement surface conditions).

• Portable Wheel Weigh Bridges of capacity i) 10 tonnes and ii) 20 tonnes, with electronic digital load indicator for determining actual magnitude of wheel loads of commercial vehicles and the distribution of loads along the selected stretch of road pavements.

• Multiple Wheel Pavement Unevenness Indicator with Integrator Unit (to measure the unevenness index in mm per km, and to obtain graphical record of pavement surface, by eliminating several draw backs of conventional Bump Integrator)

• Equipment to measure the ordinates of Rebound Deflection Bowl of Pavement Surface i) Modified Benkelman Beam with four sets of additional levers and dial gauges and ii) A set of LVDTs attached to datum frame at appropriate locations (to evaluate the stresses/strains in pavement layers by back-calculation method)

• Tracking Task Device (for indirect evaluation of riding quality of pavement surface by psycho-physical method)

• Portable Contact Thermometer with Electronic Digital Temperature Indicator (to measure temperature of pavement surface and layers)

• Constant Temperature Creep Testing Unit (to conduct creep tests on bituminous concrete specimens)

• Light Intensity Tester (to evaluate road lighting)

• Electronic Drunkometer (to measure alcohol content in the breath of drivers)

• Electronic Equipment for Automatic Recording and Printing Transverse Placement of Axle Loads of Vehicles along the width of pavement and the exact time of each load application.

• Special types of Pressure Cells, Moisture Cells, Displacement Measuring Devices, etc. for carrying out model tests on pavement layers for research work

• Semi field test track of Size 5 m x 40 m with desired soil subgrade upto 3.0 m depth, loading frame of capacity 20 tonnes and appropriate loading arrangement (for testing of semi-field model pavements and different pavement layer materials)

• Dual and Dual - Tandem Wheel Load Assemblies with provision for varying the spacing between the wheels and axles (to study the effect of load and wheel assembly configuration on stress distribution in pavements)

• Crack simulator, equipment to study the crack propagation in model pavement slabs and beam specimens, due to repeated application of desired magnitude of vertical and horizontal displacements.

• Repeated Load Fatigue Testing Machine to Test Bituminous Mixes under Repeated Loads by varying the load, frequency and mode of load application