Jaipur: PWD will adopt new tech to address construction issues

JAIPUR: The state’s Public Works Department (PwD) is planning to adopt new technologies to address various challenges in road construction and its durability. The conventional technology has shown various drawbacks such as excessive use of natural resources, rapid depletion of aggregate, insufficient durability, poor riding quality, long hauls of construction material and excessive pollution, said PWD principal secretary Naveen Mahajan.
“In order to redress these challenges, it is the need of the hour to adopt new/innovative technologies in the road sector in a big way,” said Mahajan.
According to Mahajan, a few innovative/new technologies in road construction include: use of plastic waste in wearing course technology - waste plastic is shredded ad coated over aggregate and mixed with hot bitumen and the resulted mix is used for pavement construction; cell-filled concrete technology - cell-filled concrete pavement is a promising solution for overloaded vehicles, inadequate drainage facilities, and water-logging problems.
Others include: panelled cement concrete pavement technology - it is useful where pavements are subjected to adverse moisture conditions due to inadequate and clogged drainage. A thinner concrete pavement with shorter panel size can be used in the construction of concrete pavements for village roads and city streets; cold mix pavement technology - cold mixing is a simple process of mixing unheated mineral aggregates with suitable grade of cationic bitumen emulsion having suitable workability during mixing at plant or site and the roads that result are called “green roads.”
Full depth reclamation technology (base and sub-base course): It is a rehabilitation method and begins with using a road reclaimer to pulverise an existing asphalt pavement layer and a portion of the underlying base, sub-base, and/or sub-grade into a new base layer.