Concrete milling, paving & compaction

Key developments are being seen in the concrete paving and slipforming market - Mike Woof writes. Key changes are taking place in the concrete paving and slipforming sector, with two of the well-known names in the market recently having changed hands. Both Miller Formless and Power Curbers/Power Pavers have recently been acquired from the families that set up these firms. In both instances the owners of the companies decided to retire and opted to sell these specialised businesses to suitable parties.

Ethiopia’s cement industry has enjoyed substantial growth in the past decade. However, challenges linked to the government’s investment policy could erode these gains, as Shem Oirere reports With nearly 16.5 million tonnes of cement capacity and 10% average growth in annual consumption, Ethiopia is among the top cement producers in sub-Saharan Africa. Only Nigeria and South Africa rival it.

A new Wirtgen SP 94i slipform paver has helped deliver the successful reconstruction of a runway in the US state of Missouri. With more than 30,000 take-offs and landings a year, Jefferson City Memorial Airport (JEF) is one of the most heavily frequented airports in Missouri. Thousands of visitors travel through it every day on their way to the government and congress offices in the state capital on the Missouri River. At the end of April 2016, work commenced on the reconstruction of a runway approximately

CEMEX is supplying a special grade of concrete for use on a busy logistics centre in Mexico. The order has been for 21,500m3 of roller compacted concrete (RCC) to pave all of the roads for the new terminal of ALA Transportes, a division of Grupo Transportes de Monterrey (GTM) - the largest trucking company in Mexico. The trucking firm needed a tough and durable concrete grade to be able to cope with the loads exerted by the movements of around 400 heavily laden trailers/day at the facility.

Enhancing safety by the use of dust collection systems for dowel pin drills - *Rob Minnich. The problem posed by silica dust is a major topic for discussion throughout the US construction industry at present. Enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) final respirable crystalline silica standard began on September 23rd, 2017, bringing the topic into the mainstream. Although it was developed to protect the health of American workers, the new rule has a much wider significance

Mobile BarrierMobile Barriers has developed a crane with a hook-and-bucket setup for the company’s Mobile Barrier MBT-1. The crane-and-bucket combination is positioned on its own 3m removeable wall section and provides a 9.15m reach and a capacity of 3900kg at base and 680kg at 9.15m. The unit can be operated from the ground or bucket via wireless controls. The bucket can be rotated out of the way or removed when not in use. Physical Stop points ensure that the crane and bucket do not encroach on live lanes

With over £300 billion of investment in infrastructure planned over the next four years in the UK, materials testing firm CET is gearing up to service a lot more projects – Kristina Smith visited the newest laboratory near Heathrow to find out more. The CET Group has ambitious plans. Over the next four years it wants to double the size of its business, which in the last year turned over £27 million. “There’s a lot of positivity out there,” said Gary Corrigan, managing director of the group’s infrastructu

Ownership of the Power Curbers and Power Pavers business making concrete slipformers has now changed hands, for an undisclosed sum. Power Curbers was established by the Messinger family and Dyke Messinger will remain in charge of the company for the foreseeable future, maintaining its corporate direction. The business was acquired in a private deal between the Cornwell and Messinger families as an investment for the future by the Cornwell family, which is also local to the Power Curbers facility in the US.

Huge numbers of construction machines as well as plant and equipment are working overtime, backed by mammoth manpower, to meet the targeted completion deadline of March 2018 for India’s Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE). The 135km arterial route is being built with six lanes and surrounds India’s National Capital, Delhi, its National Capital Region (NCR) and the industrially developed North Indian states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

How best is it possible to assess the state of concrete in a road pavement, bridge deck or tunnel wall? One of the most reliable ways is to take a core of concrete from the structure to analyse and test in the laboratory. One downside to this method is that doing the test creates weak points in the structure that must then be repaired. Another is that the frequency of such cores cannot be too great – so it is possible that some problem areas will be missed. New technologies from the world of geospatial eng