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The Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), a constituent unit of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, has been carrying out applied and basic research for developing new techniques in all areas of building activities.
The Institute’s divisions broadly categorized as - housing and planning; educational and healthcare buildings; clay product; organic building material; fire research; building processes, plant and productivity; rural building and environment; geotechnical engineering; structural engineering and efficiency of building - provide scientific and technical inputs through various research and development programmes of national importance. Founded in the year 1947 at Roorkee, now in Uttaranchal, the Institute has put its main thrust on the development of building material from natural resources like interior soil, mining, industrial and agricultural wastes. Research is carried on in developing wood substitutes, polymers, plastics, protective coatings, adhesive, fiber reinforced building materials and components, cement, lime and lime based products, high strength concrete and pollution controlling and monitoring devices for lime kilns. It has over 156 types of testing facilities for building materials and components to cater to the needs of the building material industries.
Mass Housing
Another area of CBRI’s expertise is architecture and physical planning where formulation of space standards, design guidelines for mass housing, planning and technology package for housing, country and town planning, computer aided architectural design, education and health buildings are taken care of. CBRI technologies have been used in more than 2 lakh urban houses, 50 thousand rural houses and 10 thousand other buildings including buildings of health and education departments. This resulted in a saving of about Rs 25 crore on the total construction cost of Rs 1,000 crore. More than 500 Navodaya Vidyalaya complexes across the country have been completed on CBRI’s design; specifications and construction technologies. Such complexes are located at places of high altitude like Kargil and at sea level like Lakshadweep and Andaman Nicobar Islands. Based on the technology developed at the Institute plants for manufacture of clay-fly ash bricks have been successfully set up at Dabhol, Vadodra, Roopnagar, Bhatinda and Delhi.
Mapping Hazard Areas
Soil exploration, field and laboratory testing of soil, ground profiling by Geo radar, studies of slopes, landslides, foundation failures and remedial measures thereof, Geotechnical Instrumentations, ground improvement are other areas of studies being pursued at the Institute. CBRI has prepared landslide hazard zonation maps of certain regions of Garhwal and Sikkim which can be useful for development of housing complexes in safe zones and in the maintenance of roads, etc. Besides four innovative foundation technologies for deep layers of soft clay deposits in Creek and wastelands have been developed.
Another thrust area of the Institute is designing of residential and industrial buildings for natural and artificial illumination, ventilation, acoustic, and thermal comfort and utilization of solar energy. Studies of manpower and material requirements in buildings, design and fabrication of machines used for construction technology managements of building projects, pre-fabrication, construction system utilizing materials developed at the Institute and elsewhere are being conducted. It also studies wind pressure on low rise buildings, thermal behaviour of materials and sound absorbing materials.
The CBRI is playing a crucial role in envisaging earthquake resistant design and construction techniques. The Institute provided technical guidance for selection of appropriate building materials and construction technologies suitable for earthquake prone areas in Maharashtra.
Surveys and Remedial Measures
The Institute surveyed 300 earthquake affected government buildings in Uttarkashi (Uttaranchal) to ascertain the extent of damage and seismic vulnerability of existing structures, suggested remedial measures for the 42-year old Jettis of Bombay Port Trust that had developed serious cracks and also developed pyramidal roof for the houses in cyclone prone coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Kerala.
For dealing with fire hazards, the Institute has inter alia, developed fire retardant treatments and coatings, development of fire detectors, alarm system and computer modelling of fire in the buildings.
International Linkages
CBRI collects, stores and disseminates R & D information on bilateral issues and international scientific collaborations. The Institute has linkages with international bodies in Netherlands, Italy, UK, USA and Australia. At the national level, it has close liaison and linkage with HUDCO, DST, MUD, Housing Boards and Societies of the state governments, various engineering & academic institutions and construction & building material industries.
Centre of Excellence
The Institute is recognized as the Center of Excellence for imparting training to the engineers, architects, artisans, etc, in areas of building science and construction technologies. A number of overseas personnel from Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Philippines, Bangladesh and Bhutan have been given training besides the persons employed in the government and private organizations within the country.
The CBRI is a proud recipient of 1994 Republic Day Award from the National Research Development Corporation for the Mini Climbing crane with a load lifting capacity up to 1,000 kg designed by it for construction of multi-storied buildings. In May 2001, it got another award for designing Settling Chamber for pollution control in brick kilns. The Institute has been accredited with ISO 9001:2000 for observing the world level standards.
With 450 scientists, technicians and officials, the CBRI is doing yeoman service to the nation by developing new technologies linked to building construction and building materials, disseminating the outcome of research and transferring the developed technologies to the industry for commercialization..
*Information Officer, Dehradun
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