10th Feburary, 2014
White topping concrete from UltraTech: Ensuring durable and aesthetic roads with longer life spans
UltraTech Concrete, a division of UltraTech Cement Limited, and India’s largest manufacturer of ready-mix concrete recently supplied whitetopping concrete for the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) Road in Bangalore, Karnataka. The 9.5 Km link road and 4 km peripheral road will connect to the proposed 111 Km Bangalore Mysore Industrial Corridor (BMIC) expressway which is expected to reduce the 3-hour drive between the two cities to an hour.
Whitetopping is the covering of an existing asphalt road with a layer of Portland cement concrete. It can be used on road surfaces where traditional asphalt surfaces have failed due to rutting or general deterioration. White topping concrete is known to improve the performance, durability and ride quality of road surfaces.
While the lifespan of ordinary bitumen roads is 5-10 years, the designed service life of white topping concrete surfaces is around 25 – 30 years, and includes minimum maintenance cost. It ensures faster moving traffic due to improved ride quality and skid resistance. White topping is considered energy efficient as it saves 20 – 30% energy required for illumination due to better reflectivity. This property also helps to reduce accidents, especially during nights. Further, it is 100% recyclable after its service life, making it a green choice.
“Whitetopping concrete represents an important potential application area from a sustainability perspective. With non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels and quarry-aggregates decreasing in availability, it is important to begin making decisions based on sustainability rather than on a first cost basis. White topping concrete overlays/pavements are a cost-effective, sustainable choice for urban roads, state and national highways, and other pavement applications,” says Mr O. P. Puranmalka, whole-time director, UltraTech Cement Ltd, who has been elected the new President of the Cement Manufacturers’ Association.
UltraTech currently operates over 100 RMC plants in 35 cities across India that have world class IT systems, quality control and vehicle tracking systems. UltraTech, a part of the Aditya Birla Group, has an unrelenting focus on safety and quality standards. All of its state-of-the-art automatic plants are capable of producing the entire range of concrete including – UltraTech Concrete Plus, Lite, Duracon, Colourcon, Fibrecon, Thermocon, Hypercon, Pervious, Décor, Freeflow and Stainless.
Apart from supplying concrete through its commercial plants, UltraTech specializes in providing customized solutions to customers through its various operating models. It currently operates RMC units for some of the most prestigious infrastructural projects in India such as Jaipur Metro, Mumbai Monorail, etc. For these projects, UltraTech also supplies custom designed, light weight and architectural concrete.
For more information please visit our website: www.ultratechcement.com or send an e-mail to sunita.pendse@adityabirla.com