By
Kaushal Kishore
Materials Engineer, Roorkee
The new Solani aqueduct on Ganges canal Roorkee was built with prestressed concrete which allows for longer spans and a simple more robust design compared to old bricks, lime- surkhi mortar masonry arches of the old aqueduct, in which 8.5 crores bricks were used, while iron railing used in the sides of two lanes were imported from England. This is interesting to note that materials bringing those days on ship from England to Indian ports take 6-10 weeks via the Suez canal or 3 to 6 months via the longer Cape of Good Hope. Calculate in it also time taken on road from Indian ports to Roorkee.
After retirement from University of now IIT Roorkee I joined M/S Roffe Construction Chemicals Pvt.Ltdd, Mumbai as it’s Chief Concrete Technologists afterwards I became it’s one of the Director.

AQUEDUCT picture taken on 7/10/2025
For the contractor of above aqueduct I designed M-40 grade of concrete with Roffe superpladticizer. Those interested may read my paper by visiting Google site and log in; Civil engineering portal The Ganges canal by Kaushal Kishore.
I had designed numerous concrete mix design almost all cements of India in this I find Utra Tech cement as one of best cement OPC and PPC both With Ultratech cement I had designed numerous concrete mixes from ordinary strength to M-80 grade concrete, self compacting concrete, shot crete concrete, fibre reinforced concrete, fly ash concrete and more There is life after retirement and after retirement I worked for 30 year’s which includes in free time working in home research and testing laboratory and numerous construction sites visits almost all India and outside India. At my age of 92 years I still work for 12 hours daily.
I had never worked for money. In spite of doing so gigantic work what to say about car I even do not have 2 wheeler not any of my house not a single inch of land in this world only pension from IIT Roorkee and few clothes
Could anyone please tell me if its advisable to use Cement fibre boards in partition walls or ceilings manufactured by Everest or Aerocon ( HIL ) for interiors or exteriors, especially in a place which has heavy rains and the atmosphere is moist. It’s urgent please
Thanks !
very helpful website for civil engg
Is their is any replacement for coarse sand other than stone dust as availability of Coarse sand decreased in Up
Can anyone tell me how to become experienced without getting any job in India. Everyone ask for experienced but no one ready to recruit freshers without references. What should we do , I got 84% in b.tech. but not have reference. So I am unemployed. It’s shameful for me to do b.tech.
This Site is absolutely Useful for me…
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, it’s very useful to me.
Thanks
Can you please help me choose a topic for my final project on water and soil
PLz share Steel Cureved plate design.
Thanks for this web site. Whether a precast concrete Overhead service reservoir can be made in India of capacity 1 Lakh to 4 Lakhs.
Pre-cast concrete of Over Head service reservoir
Such an interesting website for me as a future C.Engineer!
All your articles are very informative. As a civil engineering student, these articles are great resources for me.
its really interesting..it helps me a lot more to understand the wide engineering industry,…big thanks!,..AS A FUTURE ENGINEER I NEED THIS…
Send me your shape column tie cutting length how we find out
Y- Shape column tie cutting length how to find out
it’s really nice
why wet sieve analysis is required
wet sieve analysis is required for classification of soils. To know whether more than 50% passing through 75 microns or not. If more than 50% particles passing through 75 microns, we can call it as fine grained soils else coarse grained soils.
Please elaborate your question.
can we use 8mm tor bar in foundation as main reinforcement.
Let me know about VTM Compaction?
That’s my course civil engineering.
And its really nice according to sahib.