THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE OUTER RING ROAD IN BANGALORE

Bangalore is one of the fastest growing cities in Southern India and is popularly known as the information technology capital of India.To meet the requirements of this rapidly expanding city, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is constructing and expanding the major roads and freeways within the city.To assist the engineers and contractors working on these freeways, Bangalore University (BU) requires civil engineering students to complete their senior design project on this rapid road expansion project.This paper highlights the work conducted by the students from BU on the Outer Ring Road which lies in the southwest corridor of the city.With the assistance of senior field engineers, students helped in the initial site assessments which included surveying the existing conditions of the roads, procuring soil samples from core cutters, conducting geotechnical field tests such as standard penetration tests (SPT) tests and laboratory tests such as tri-axial and consolidation tests and in areas where the roads existed students conducted Dynamic Cone penetrometer (DCP) tests.In addition to working with the engineers students were required to help the botanist move certain protected species of plants to areas which were not to be disturbed.During the design period, students assisted in developing computer aided design (CAD) drawings and surveying out the limits of the freeway.The collaboration of engineers and students resulted in the completion of the outer ring road ahead of schedule and leading to a 5000% increase in the property value of the area encompassed by this road.