Granite Balustrades made by machine turning become brittle and easily break

Replace ornate stone balustrades with cement

Sir,

This is with reference to the news item “Raja Marga in shambles” (Star of Mysore dated July 6) wherein it is reported that, the ornate stone balustrades have crumbled. I want to educate the decision maker / makers that, these Granite Ornate stone balustrades are made by turning highly brittle Granite stones and not by carving and hence the stresses would concentrate at smaller diameter of balustrades and also at the projected small solid circular plugs provided on either side of the balustrades to fit into the holes in Top and bottom Rails.

Due to high stress concentration at smaller diameter of balustrades and also at the projected small solid circular plugs provided on either side of the balustrades, and also due to brittle nature of granite, the Ornate Granite stone balustrades will easily fail due to impact caused by hitting of solid material and also due to cyclic load caused by the vibration transmitted due to the continuous movement of vehicles.

If one examines the failed Ornate Granite stone balustrades closely,  majority of the failures have taken place either at the smaller diameter of balustrades or at the projected small solid circular plugs provided on either side of the balustrades to fit into the holes in Top and bottom Rails.

It is unfortunate that the authorities, who have planned to install these Ornate Granite stone balustrades, have not foreseen this failures. Even if they replace these failed Ornate Granite stone balustrades by new ones, they may not withstand the impact due to poor impact strength of granite stone. Hence it is better to replace these failed Granite Ornate stone balustrades only by  Ornate balustrades made out of cement to last long.

– K.V. Chandramouli, Mysuru, 10.7.2018

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