Vasudev V Nori, Shirish Patel and Associates Consultants Private Limited (India)
Large Panel Prefabrication for Residential Apartments
Petit Hall
Figure1.1.1: A view of the large panel construction for an apartment building
At that time India had very strict import controls. The Contractors, who were also the developers and thus had control over both design and construction for the project, were unexpectedly lucky and got permission to import two tower cranes of 75 tonne-metre capacity (8 tonnes maximum hook load, 2.5 tonnes at 30m radius). They wanted to put these to use immediately and develop the technology for prefabricated housing construction.
Unfortunately, for this first project the plan and architectural dimensions had already been frozen before the decision was taken to use prefabrication. It meant that the 170 panels per floor would need to be of 103 different types. So panel repetitions were too few. But this was acceptable considering that a technology new to India would be developed.
Because this was the designers' as well as the contractors' first experience of reinforced concrete prefabrication, it was decided to build and load test, on a different site some kilometres away, a full-scale 3-storeyed mock-up, using wall and slab panels similar to those intended for the final construction. Vertical joints between wall panels in the mock-up were differently configured to test a variety of possible joint details.
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