R&D Knowledge Sharing Session on ‘Use of Cow Dung Ash as Partial Replacement for Cement in Mortar’ & ‘Building Information Modelling (BIM) Technology: Trends and challenges’

The Civil Engineering Department had its seventh session under R&D cell on the 6^th October 2021. The two speakers for this session were Asst. Prof. Kaushik Pai Fondekar and Dr. Shwetha P.

Prof. Kaushik presented on ‘Use of Cow Dung Ash as Partial Replacement for Cement in Mortar’. The speaker explained how the use of cement could be reduced in mortar by replacing it with cow dung ash. He explained that Cow dung ash is obtained when the cow dung is dried for 12 days, heated at around 420-550 degrees Celsius and is cooled and crushed into powder form and then sieved under IS 400 micron sieve. He also informed that Cow dung ash as a by-product is readily available at cattle farms with negligible price and sometimes is almost free of cost. He highlighted that replacement of cement by cow dung ash had resulted in better strength, durability and workability as compared to conventional mortar mix.

Prof. Kaushik concluded the following from his study saying the compressive strength throughout the testing period of 7, 28 and 56 days with every replacement percentage gives a value higher than 3 N/mm² as per IS 4031-6 (1988). He also stated that the optimum percentage of replacement of cement with Cow dung Ash across 7, 28 and 56 days was found to be close to around 15% due to higher strength of around 10 N/mm² at 56 days of curing. As far as cost is concerned with the compressive strength and replacement of cement combined, the best percentage was found to be at 25% Cow Dung Ash.

The paper was published in International journal of Engineering Research & Technology,Volume 9, Issue 14 along with Deepam Kamat, Omprakash Gupta, Aniket Palyekar, Vinav Naik, Vaibhav Khadilkar and Akshata Kudchadker.

Dr. Shwetha presented on ‘Building Information Modelling (BIM) Technology: Trends and challenges’. Dr. Shwetha introduced the BIM technology as the most promising development in Architecture, Engineering and construction Industry. She also explained that the BIM technology helps architects, engineers and constructors visualize what is to be built and thus identify any potential design, constructional or operational issue.

Dr. Shwetha elaborated on the following applications of BIM technology: (i) Visualization can be easily generated, (ii) fabrication/shop drawings are generated for various building systems, (iii) Code Review: Fire department and other officials may use these models for their review of building projects, (iv) Cost estimating: the software has built-in cost estimating features. She also highlighted on the challenges in the usage of this software. The challenges discussed were as follows (i) need for well-developed practical strategies for the purposeful exchange and integration of meaningful information among the building information model components, (ii)need to standardize the BIM process and to define guidelines for its implementation, etc.