Dhamra Port, Odisha — 2,50,000 sqm of M-50 paver pavement for Adani Ports
The project
Dhamra is a working port on the Odisha coast, and the pavement it needed was the kind that takes a beating: internal roads, truck parking, and a steel stackyard where heavy coils and plates are stored and moved every day. The specification was 80 mm unipaver blocks, 250 × 125 mm, M-50 grade, to BS 6717.
The quantity was 2,50,000 square metres. At that scale, and that far from any established precast factory, buying blocks and trucking them in was never a sensible option. We set up production at the site, and our own crews laid what we made.
Remote site, extreme weather
Two things made Dhamra hard. The first was distance: it is a very remote location, so everything from spares to cement had to be planned well ahead. The second was the weather. That stretch of coast sees extreme monsoons and frequent cyclones, and there were days when our production area stood under water, press and mixer included.
We do not hide those photos; they are some of the ones we are proudest of. A site plant in a place like this is only as good as the team's ability to protect it, wait out the water, check it properly and start again. I have written more about that in what extreme weather teaches you about on-site precast.
Quality and the finished pavement
Production at Dhamra ran under the project’s QC plan, agreed with the client before regular production started: what gets tested, how often, and what happens to a batch that does not pass. Having that settled up front meant the arguments that usually come later simply did not come.
The laid pavement was then put through the vibratory roller test across the roads and the stackyard, which is about as direct a way to show a pavement’s strength as there is. It came through without cracking. More on that in what the vibratory roller test tells you about a paver.
From the site
