Well, what’s an aqueduct. An aqueduct is a water-to-water crossover, like a road flyover which normally takes a canal over a river. This seriously is an ancient engineering as back as Roman times. Pont du Gard is one of the finest examples of an Aqueduct.
While I have been involved with Irrigation projects my entire career, few stood out as special as Aqueducts in Gadchiroli District Maharashtra for VIDC( vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation). There were two such aqueducts i.e. One at chainage 14460 and other at 6420(called thus). The one at 14460 was spanning 4 spans of 30 meters each with 18 meter width and a massive 6 meters height with 3 boxes.
The primary issue with this design and build project was about scouring of the bed of the river and supporting the span while constructing it as there was no support possible in the riverbed. We decided to use series of trusses sitting on pier edge offset to support. This was decided based on the fact that piling would be more expensive to provide a mid-support and not reliable as far as flow of water in the river is concerned as high water level during floods could destabilize the entire supporting system.
We also invested in an RMC plant at site with concrete pump as concrete had to reach nearly 150 meters but across the river. This was in the year 2006. Both the aqueducts were constructed successfully with this method and handed over to the department.
