Innovation
// Responsible business · 03
Better methods, longer-lived structures.
We adopt methods that make structures lighter, faster to build and longer-lived: precast UHPFRC superstructures, mechanised drill-and-blast tunnelling at an eight-lane scale, and survey and machine control that keep every layer of a pavement to design.
[01] Materials
One span where three were needed.
Ultra-High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concrete is a dense concrete threaded with fine steel fibres, several times stronger than ordinary structural concrete and far more resistant to cracking. It lets a girder be slimmer and lighter for the same load, and one span reach where two or three would have been needed. Near Phaltan, RKC used it to cross in a single 102.6 m span, with no piers in the water, as part of a package of 15 major bridges built with precast technology developed in collaboration with Malaysia.
- Precast segments cast under controlled conditions
- Fewer supports in the channel, less time over water
- A more durable structure over its life
[02] Methods
Tunnelling at expressway scale.
The 4.16 km Bhoj–Morbe tunnel is driven by drill and blast: drill jumbos bore the pattern, crews charge and fire, the muck is loaded out and the ground is scaled and supported before the next round. Survey control keeps every round on line and level so the two drives meet where the design says. Doing this across two eight-lane tubes, inside an eco-sensitive zone, is a first for RKC and rare in India.
- Drill jumbos and mechanised charging
- Rock support matched to the ground class
- Survey control round by round
[03] Precision
Every layer to design.
Modern paving and grading is machine-controlled: the paver and grader read the design surface from survey instruments and hold it. RKC’s partnership with Leica Geosystems puts that control on its highway sites, and its test track for Hyundai at Talegaon, where the surface itself is the instrument, shows what it delivers.
- Machine-controlled paving and grading
- Digital survey and BIM on major structures
- Quality testing in our own site laboratories
[04] In practice
How new methods reach our sites
- 01Technology partners’ engineers work alongside RKC’s on first use of a new method
- 02Trials and mock-ups before a method goes live on a structure
- 03Site laboratories test materials on every project
- 04Lessons from one site written up and carried to the next
- 05An owned fleet, maintained and replaced on a plan