CONSTRUCTION OF EIGHT LANE VADODARA-MUMBAI EXPRESSWAY IN THE STATE

The existing six lane highway between Delhi-Mumbai (NH-48) is one of the most busiest highway which has reached it’s max. traffic limit and is also anticipated that the traffic would increase significantly in coming years, NHAI proposed to construct a eight lane access controlled expressway from New Delhi to Mumbai passing through 5 states which is 1,350 km long, which will reduce the 24 hours travel time to 12 hours from Delhi to Mumbai, additional 4 lanes on either side will be reserved for future expansion and in which Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway is a part of it. This section is awarded to EPC Contractor IRB Infrastructures Developers Ltd. and IRB awarded the same to L&T Constructions Ltd. for Design & Construction. L&T wanted to incorporate Reinforced soil wall system as return wall at all the Structures (ROB, Flyover, MJB, MNB, VUP, LVUP) portion to retain the fill.

Out of the various alternatives, Reinforced Soil (RS) Wall system (MacRes) with precast concrete panels as fascia and Paraweb as reinforcement was selected as the solution for the above problem due to its economy, flexibility, speed of construction and long term performance. Galvanized loop and toggle was used as mechanical connection between facia panel and ParaWeb geostrip. Designs were performed as per IRC SP 102. The project had structures with RS walls placed at acute angle. In case of the acute angle walls, proper compaction at the corner portion cannot be achieved because of the movement constraint of compacting equipment and there are also chances of slippage of toggle bar from the connection. Also, there are chances of widening of gap between the panels and hence to overcome the issue, additional wall of 5m length was proposed as an alternative arrangement perpendicular to the cross wall. A small wall was placed bridge the gap between longitudinal wall and 5m length new wall. Maccaferri provided technical assistance to install this solutions with additional walls. The construction of the Macres walls was completed in span of 2 years and 9 months.