Faculty advisor: Murali Jagannathan
E-mail: muralij@civil.iitm.ac.in 

Description: 

One issue that repeatedly features in construction arbitration and litigation is the disputes due to differences in contract interpretation. A manual reading of lengthy and verbose contract documents to identify potential interpretation conflicts in the time-constrained tendering stage is impractical and therefore, issues are left unattended, leading to problems on a later date. In this study, the researcher is expected analyse the various possibilities of ambiguities and other contract drafting inefficiencies through an analysis of court cases and contract documents and site visits and develop a Natural Language Processing (NLP)-based assistive tool that can help parties to automatically identify potential interpretation issues, impact and mitigation measures.

Keywords:  

Contract, Interpretation, AI, Claims, Disputes

Pre-requisites, if any:

Domain knowledge in Contracts and Claims Management and a keen interest in acquiring and updating data analysis skills, especially NLP.

Faculty advisor: Murali Jagannathan
E-mail: muralij@civil.iitm.ac.in 

Description: 

When a contractual claim submitted by a party to a construction contract is meritorious, there should not be an issue in timely claim settlement. However, when submitted claims are frivolous, non-contractual, and (or) inflated, delayed settlement of claims and disputes from such opportunistic behaviour are inevitable. With dispute resolution already a time-consuming activity, opportunistic behaviour further increases the cost of dispute resolution, putting projects at stake. Therefore, the research question is, “What is the extent of opportunistic behaviour in contractual claims submission, and can it be measured so that mitigation mechanisms can be put in place to prevent delayed dispute resolution and unjust enrichment?”

Keywords: 

Contract, Opportunistic Behaviour, Construction Industry, Claims, Disputes

Pre-requisites, if any:

Knowledge of statistical analysis tools and techniques

Any other information:

The research will involve a mixed methods approach wherein qualitative and quantitative techniques will be employed to answer the research question.

Faculty advisor: Murali Jagannathan
E-mail: muralij@civil.iitm.ac.in 

Description:

Research on lean and sustainable construction is fast picking up, and researchers have shown results that can not only support the journey toward a sustainable future but also help increase construction productivity in an industry prone to time and cost overruns. Notwithstanding the developments, the construction practices at the site have not changed, and problems continue. The research question, therefore, is, ‘What does it take to implement sustainable construction practices at project sites practically?’ The researcher will be expected to explore various facets affecting implementing lean and sustainable construction practices and develop a validated framework to support implementation.

Keywords:

Lean, Sustainability, Construction Industry, productivity

Pre-requisites, if any:

Knowledge of statistical analysis tools and techniques

Any other information:

The research will involve a mixed methods approach wherein qualitative and quantitative techniques will be employed to develop the framework.

Faculty advisor: Ashwin Mahalingam
E-mail: mash@civil.iitm.ac.in 

Description : 

Companies tend to exhibit ‘institutionalized’ behaviours where they tend to use the same practices, organizational structures and contracts, over and over again. If the construction industry is to become more sustainable, firms need to change the way they work. This research will attempt to study ways in which engineering firms achieve ‘institutional change’. In addition firms today have a sustainability strategy. This project will also analyze these sustainability strategies to derive a blueprint for construction firms to transform their existing practices into sustainable ones

Keywords: 

Sustainability, Institutions, Construction, Business Models

Pre-requisites, if any: None

Any other information: Independent thinking is required

Faculty advisor: Ashwin Mahalingam
E-mail: mash@civil.iitm.ac.in 

Description: 

In order to truly build low carbon buildings or infrastructure, architects, civil engineers, mechanical and electrical engineers, contract managers and others need to join hands and align their visions. This project will attempt to develop a framework for such coordination. The project will also attempt to design a measurement framework that will enable the measurement of the carbon footprint of a building at the design stage, and use this to guide the project team as to what strategies they can use in design, construction and operation, to minimize the carbon impact.

Keywords: 

Sustainability, Low Carbon, Construction, coordination, Benchmarks and Metrics

Pre-requisites, if any: None

Any other information: Independent thinking is required

Faculty advisor: Nikhil Bugalia
E-mail: nbugalia@civil.iitm.ac.in 

Description: 

The construction sector in India, the second largest employment generator, faces significant challenges due to skill gaps, with 81% of the workforce considered poorly skilled. This leads to poor quality execution, safety issues, project delays, and cost overruns. The Indian government has recognized the potential of digital technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) in enhancing construction-related training for safety and quality. However, significant work is needed to scale the impact of VR technology, particularly in the Indian context. Key aspects include creating site-specific/trade-specific training programs, developing VR training scenarios that represent Indian conditions, and offering affordable training programs for small and medium construction companies. A hybrid training strategy, where VR complements existing industry training programs, needs to be developed and rigorously evaluated.

Keywords:

construction, safety, VR, training, games

Pre-requisites, if any: willingness to learn

Faculty advisor: Keerthana Kirupakaran

E-mail: keerthanak@civil.iitm.ac.in

Description: 

Textile reinforced concrete (TRC) is a composite material reinforced with non-metallic textile that enhances the tensile capacity and fracture toughness of the material. TRC applications span from strengthening existing structures to free-form lightweight structures and facades. This study will focus on the thermo-mechanical performance of TRC. Work involves experimental investigation of TRC specimens under fatigue cycles and temperature variations and subsequently modelling the thermo-mechanical behaviour.

Keywords:

Textile reinforced concrete, Fatigue, temperature, Thermo-mechanical

Pre-requisites, if any: Basic knowledge of reinforced concrete design, and finite element analysis.
Any other information: Student should be interested in laboratory work.

Faculty advisor: Manu Santhanam & Surender Singh

E-mail: manus@civil.iitm.ac.in & surender@civil.iitm.ac.in

Description: 

Rigid pavements are long-lasting and preferable. However, high-volume utilization of natural materials makes this choice unsustainable and expensive. The use of construction, demolition, and industrial wastes can induce sustainability and economic benefits in rigid pavements. This project explores the potential of locally sourced waste streams in India and Germany to be used as constituents in concrete replacing both Portland cement and natural aggregates in high volumes at the same time. Scientific knowledge on microstructure and properties of concrete with such high volume of waste materials will be developed to address key challenges such as processing of waste, activation of waste materials (carbon and thermal activation), dimensional stability (creep, shrinkage, and curling) and durability (Alkali-silica reaction, freeze-thaw, and leaching).  Mechanistic models will be developed to enable design of pavements utilizing such materials and a holistic machine learning based mix design framework which also considers life cycle assessment developed will help to maximize use of locally sourced waste streams. The final demonstrator will ensure the field applicability of the developed framework with an aim to reach TRL6 at the project end. The partnerships established in this project between academic institutions and industry in India and Germany will lead to a long-term impact on the practice of sustainable construction and also in drafting the policies to enable the same.

Keywords:

Pavement concrete, supplementary cementitious materials, recycled concrete aggregate, durability, life cycle assessment

Note: This is a funded project from the Indo-German Science and Technology Centre (IGSTC).

Faculty advisor: Aslam Kunhi Mohamed

E-mail: akm@civil.iitm.ac.in 

Description: 

Chemical admixtures are added to concrete to bring about tailored properties which are very essential in modern day construction. These include a range of organic molecules ranging from small and commonly known sugars to polycarboxylate ether-based superplasticizers. With the urgent need to use more sustainable and low-carbon intensive cement systems in concrete, there is a greater demand to develop and understand the mechanisms of such chemical admixtures. Here, we use a combination of computational and experimental techniques to understand the interaction of the existing as well as emerging admixtures on

Keywords: 

Chemical admixtures, low carbon, cement, calcined clays, molecular dynamics, density functional theory, polymer chemistry.

Pre-requisites, if any: Knowledge/experience on molecular dynamics and related methods are helpful. Familiarity with python or other programming languages.