CONSTRUCTION OF 24 DOMES ATOP RAMAKRISHNA MATH, PUNE

Complex geometrical shapes: The Ramakrishna Temple at Pune in India

The temple has been conceived with a series of 24 domes of varying sizes and shapes with largest being about 8 mtr dia and 18 mtr high and smallest one of 2.2 mtr dia and 1.8 mtr high. The bigger dome is made up of about 128 individual petals of different shapes and sizes of about 4 m2 area each. These are precast and then erected & assembled ( 8 petals at each level) into insitu ferrocement ribs.

Other domes are made up of pieces varying from 4 pieces per dome to 50 pieces per dome.

The mortar for this high performance ferrocement has been designed after a series of tests using different cements, fly ash, microsilica, fibers and superplasticizers. The mortar is virtually impermeable and develops compressive strengths of the order of 60 N/mm2. The mortar mix is shown in Table 1.

The advantages of precast ferrocement have been mainly the excellent compaction, durability, very good curing and substantial saving in time. All the precasting was completed well before the slabs on which the domes were to be erected. Thus as soon as slab was cast and curing of slab was completed the erection of Shikhara was taken up. Overall saving in time was about 8 months compared to insitu RCC Domes. There was also substanatial saving in cost due to saving of material, formwrok and reduced dead load on substructure.