The National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), the executing agency of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR corridor (MAHSR), has developed casting Yards at 25 strategic locations along the alignment.
Out of 25 casting yards, 17 are full span casting yards and eight are segmental casting yards. Each Casting Yard is spread over 16 to 93 acres as per requirement and is located adjacent to the High-Speed Rail alignment.
According to NHSRCL, the cumulative area of 25 Casting Yards is around 1,000 acres.
NHSRCL has adopted the full span launching method along with the segmental method. The Full Span girders (40 m length) are preferred over segmental girders as their erection is seven times faster.
However, at locations where full span girder launching is not feasible due to site constraints like road crossings, canals, pipelines, major rivers and curvature radii less than 6,000 metres, segmental girders are used by NHSRCL.
While the full span girder of 40 m is cast in one go, segmental girders are cast in small pieces (15-24 in number) of lengths varying from 1.75-2.5m each. Then these small pieces are stitched together at the site using prestressing cables to make spans of length from 35-60 m.
Recently, NHSRCL developed a casting yard on 22 acres near Bhatia Toll Plaza, Village-Vaktana, Surat.
In this yard, all the required facilities like a concrete batching plant (90 Cu.M./Hour), four gantries of 150 MT each, four gantries of 10 MT each, material storage, laboratory for testing of material, site office, labour camp to accommodate 500 personnel, medical facility including ambulance etc. have been developed to ensure continuous casting of segments.