India’s first National Highway Steel Slag Road section on NH- 66 Mumbai-Goa National Highway was inaugurated on 13th January 2024 by Dr VK Saraswat, Member (S&T), NITI AAYOG inaugurated. On the occasion, Dr Saraswat hailed CSIR-Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI) and said that the institute is transforming the waste of steel industries into wealth and is helping the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to build stronger and ecofriendly national highways in the country.
The Ministry of Science & Technology informed that JSW Steel, under the CSIR-CRRI technological guidance, has constructed the 1 km long four lane steel slag road section on Indapur-Panvel Section of NH-66 Mumbai-Goa. For the construction of this road around 80,000 tons of CONARC Steel slag were converted as processed steel slag aggregates and utilized for the road construction in all layers of the road in place of natural aggregates.
The road has bituminous and cement concrete steel slag road section at same location in RHS and LHS carriageways. On this road section, the processed steel slag aggregates and slag cement have been utilized for construction of the cement concrete road in all layers.
Dr Manoranjan Parida, Director, CSIR-CRRI said that the institute, under a sponsored research project of Ministry of Steel, is developing national guidelines for utilization of processed steel slag in steel slag road construction. He further added that CSIR-CRRI in collaboration with different steel industries has successfully utilized steel slag in road construction at Gujarat, Jharkhand and Arunachal Pradesh.
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Satish Pandey, Principal Scientist CSIR-CRRI and Project Leader of the Steel Slag Road project informed that the bituminous steel slag road on NH-66 is built with 28 per cent less thickness in comparison to conventional bituminous road on NH-66 and while cement concrete section is built at identical thickness. Both the road sections i.e. bituminous and cement concrete are around 32 per cent economical in comparison to conventional roads and found to have better durability.
