Civil Engineering Wonders

Lodha’s World One will bring India’s name in the list of some of the world re-known engineering projects as it will be the tallest residential tower in the world.

Project Details and Costing
Location- Upper Worli, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Site Area – 17.5 acre

Land Acquired from Srinivas Cotton Mills By Lodha Group for Rs 250 crore (US$40 million)

Project Cost – Rs 20 billion (US$320 million)

Expected Revenue from Sales – Rs 50 billion (US$800 million)

Architect
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners are the architects for World One. This company has more than 200 awards for design excellence which include 24 AIA National Honor Awards.

Structural Engineer
Leslie E. Robertson Associates (LERA) are the ones doing structure designs for this project. They have vast experience in designing tall buildings as their earlier projects included the Shanghai World Financial Center, Bitexco Financial Tower, World Trade Center in New York.

Types of Flats in World One

1) World residences – These are the ones starting from level 1 to level 43 with three and four bedroom houses along with curved glass living room and wide sundecks along each room.

2) World Villas – These lavish four-bedroom flats will be from level 43 to 117 and are designed in such a way that they offer 270 degree view of the city. Other amenities include home theatre, an outdoor Jacuzzi, a private pool and wide sundecks in every room.

3) World Mansions – These are the super luxurious flats starting from 117 storeys. These houses are sprawled over two floors and offer 360-degree view of the city.

This is not for even rich, these are only for superrich as the apartment prices start from Rs 7.5 crore (US$1.2 million) and go all the way to Rs 50 crore (US$8.0 million).

Image courtesy:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_One

Gravelly Hill Interchange also known as the Spaghetti Junction is one of the iconic civil engineering work in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Gravelly Hill became famous as the Spaghetti Junction due to its complex design.

This junction is spread across 30 acres and has 18 routes which include slip roads ( 4km or 2.5 miles). It has a total of 559 concrete columns and passes over two railway lines, three canals, and two rivers

The construction work started in 1968 and was completed in May 1972 and till date its considered as one of the most complicated road network in world.

Check out the construction video of Gravelly Hill – Spaghetti Junction UK

We at engineeringcivil.com are thankful to Sir Thomas for submitting this Civil Engineering Wonder information to us.

India, a developing country has world’s third largest road network but when we talk about expressways, we can hardly name a few like Mumbai-Pune Expressway and Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. So we decided to tell you about some of the other expressways in India.

Here is the list of India’s top 11 Super Expressways

1) Ahmedabad Vadodara Expressway
Ahmedabad Vadodara Expressway is 95 km long and joins Ahmedabad and Baroda in Gujarat. It is also referred as National Expressway 1. This expressway was opened to public in 2004 and was constructed under the Golden Quadrilateral Project by NHAI.

2) Mumbai-Pune Expressway
Mumbai-Pune Expressway (official name is the Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway) is 93 km long and is considered as one of the best expressways in India. It is India’s first six lane high speed expressway and was made by Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) at a staggering cost of Rs 1,630 crore (US$363.49 million). It was opened to public in April 2002

3) Jaipur-Kishangarh Expressway
Jaipur-Kishangarh Expressway is 90km long and it connects Jaipur with Kishangarh. It was constructed under the Golden Quadrilateral National Highways Development Project and its cost was USD 154 million. More than 20,000 vehicles pass from this highway everyday.

4) Allahabad Bypass
Allahabad Bypass covers a distance of 86 km and is one of the most remarkable achievements of the Golden Quadrilateral project. It connects India’s four main metropolians New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai.

5) Ambala Chandigarh Expressway
Ambala Chandigarh Expressway covers a distance of 35 km and has reduced the traffic congestion to a much greater extent. It was opened in 2009 and was built at a cost of Rs 298 crore ($66.45 million)

6) Chennai Bypass
Chennai Bypass covers a distance of 32 km and connects four national highways (NH45, NH4, NH205 and NH5) around Chennai. The cost of this project was Rs 405 crore (Rs 4.05 billion).

7) Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway
Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway covers a distance of 28 km and has been a life saver for commuters. Before construction of this expressway huge traffic jams were seen on the roads. Though this problem has not been solved 100% but still this expressway has brought some relief to the commuters. Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway starts at Dhaula Kuan in Delhi and ends at Manesar which is on the outskirts of Gurgaon. The cost of this project was $223 million and it was opened for public use in January 2008.

8 ) Noida-Greater Noida Expressway
Noida-Greater Noida Expressway covers a distance of 24.53 km. This six-lane highway connects Noida to Greater Noida. The total cost to build this expressway is about 400 crores (Rs 4 billion).

9) Delhi Noida Direct Flyway
Delhi Noida Direct Flyway or popularly known as the DND flyway is an eight lane road having a total length of 9.2 km and connects Delhi to Noida. It was built by The Noida Toll Bridge Company Ltd.

10) Hyderabad elevated expressway
Two separate elevated expressways were to be constructed in Hyderabad to overcome the congestion problem. The first one is P.V. Narasimha Rao Elevated Expressway which covers a distance of 11.6 km and the other Rajiv Elevated Expressway which will cover the distance of 20 km. P.V. Narasimha Rao Elevated Expressway was completed in 2009 and it connects Hyderabad International Airport to Mehdipatnam. Rajiv Elevated Expressway was proposed as an extension and will cover Secunderabad-Shamirpet stretch via Karkhana, Trimulgherry and Bollarum. But this project is currently under suspension due to high project costs.

11) Hosur Road Elevated Expressway
Hosur Road Elevated Expressway covers a distance of 9.98 km and connects Bangalore to Hosur. This expressway has the distinction of becoming the tallest expressway in Bangalore at the height of 17 meters i.e. 56 ft. This project was started in 2006 by BETL and was inaugurated on 22 January 2010.

We have many more expressways in India which are under construction or are already approved but work has not started yet. But still India needs many more of those expressways, to reduce the traveling time and for better connectivity across other Indian cities and states.

With aspiration of becoming a global superpower, India’s construction industry is now thinking beyond the box. Mumbai Worli Sea Link as one of the biggest achievements has boosted the construction industry and now they are building world’s highest railway bridge over Chenab in Reasi in Jammu between two villages Bakkal and Kauri.

The 1.3 km, 359 meters from the river bed is nick named as Sky Bridge and is part of the 73 km Katra-Dharam section of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link USBRL project.

Some facts about this Bridge
1) It will be 19 m higher than the currently tallest rail bridge i.e the bridge on France’s Tarn River (340m)
2) It will be 35 m taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
3) It will be six times the height of the Panvalnadi bridge in Maharashtra which is considered asthe tallest so rail bridge in India so far

Bridge Design
The design of this bridge is divided as
1) A 467 meter steel arch in the centre
2) A 185-meter approach deck from the Bakkal end
3) A 650-meter approach deck from the Kauri end.

The construction details and photographs of this bridge are awaited.

We are very thankful to Er Vipun Paul for submitting this useful information to us.

The Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge also popularly known as the Pearl Bridge, has the longest central span of any suspension bridge. The central span is staggering 1,991 metres (6,532 ft) making it a truly marvelous civil engineer wonder. Located in Japan, Akashi Kaikyo Bridge was completed in 1998 with the purpose of linking the city of Kobe on the mainland of Honsho to Iwaya on Awaji Island by crossing the busy Akashi Strait.

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On 4th Jan 2010, the biggest civil engineering marvel was inaugurated with a spectacular display of water, sound, light, and fireworks.

The biggest marvel which has amazed one and all has been in minds of not only civil engineers but also in the minds of common people. The world’s tallest building is being unveiled in the middle of the a huge financial crises but this has not marred the spirit of Dubai.

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Tirol-Adria-Project (Tyrol-Adriatic Sea-Project) was filed at the EU-commission in Brussels (head office Energy and Traffic) and at governments of Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Munich, Innsbruck, Bozen and Trento and consists of the following proposals:

A: Tyrol-Adriatic Sea hydropower stations based on the deviation Inn-Etsch; Capacity of 3.500 MW, pumping capacity 2.000 MW.

B: Danube-Tyrol-Adriatic Sea-Waterway, the waterway Passau-Venice has a distance of 700 kilometres and is at the Po Valley already navigable.

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Main Concept
Fulfillment of human needs for:
· Safe and clean environment
· Food & Shelter,
· Education,
· Arts
· Culture,
· Useful and satisfying employment

Objectives
The Concept of GIFT is based on the following objectives :
· To develop a new format for globally benchmarked Integrated City.
· To propose a road map for fast track development and implementation.
· To make the city scalable in each & every aspect for a distant future.
· To derive the city format from fast changing lifestyles & new technologies.
· To achieve an image of Global city, that keeps pace with modern technologies.

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Dubai – The Astonishing Place For Civil Engineers

To amaze the engineering fraternity, Dubai is back with a project which would test the engineering limits. As per some news, Trident International Holdings have given a project to Arabian Construction Company to build world”s tallest residential tower the ”Pentominium” in Dubai Marina.

The estimated cost of this project is staggering  400 million dollars and the builders believe that once this will finish, Dubai would again prove his superiority in civil engineering field. Professionals all over the world are really looking forward for this project as it would change the way people think about residential buildings.

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When we talk about moving from western suburbs to islands of Mumbai, the only way out till today was Mahim causeway. But today with the grand opening of Bandra Worli Sea Link Project by Sonia Gandhi would make the life of commuters much more easy. Earlier with the non availability of any other route, the distance of 8 km took nearly 40 minutes but with the opening of this Indian engineering marvel, the distance would be covered in just under 10 minutes.

Talking about the engineering side of this project, these two cable-stayed bridges, one 600-metre-long at Bandra channel and the other twin-tower supported 350-metre-long at the Worli channel are one of its kind in India. This eight lane bridge has a cable stayed tower which is of almost 43 storey building height. The Cable Stay system comprises 2,250 km of high strength galvanized steel wires which support this bulky 20,000 ton structure. Several teams of engineers from Canada, China, Egypt, Switzerland, Britain, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Serbia, Indonesia and the Philippines have worked on the project.

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