Features

The International Road Federation is pleased to invite you to participate in the IRF Seminar on Public/Private Partnership (PPP) and Road Safety to be held on 12th and 13th October in Cairo, Egypt. The seminar will address major challenges facing the road industry today. Over two focused and specifically tailored days - one on Road Safety issues and the other on all aspects of Public/Private Partnership (PPP) - industry experts will cover topics ranging from earliest target setting and planning, constructio

Ever since the first wheel travelled along its first path, roads have needed regular maintenance in order to provide the safest route possible to one's desired destination. For today's roads, the maintenance activities that must be performed, their scheduling and the methods of execution are in a continuing state of evolution. And this requires a significant amount of planning by those who operate and manage the road systems.

The European football championships are among a number of things pushing Poland's ambitious highway building programme. Patrick Smith reports. Poland is planning to spend a colossal €4.57 billion on road projects in 2009, a 35% increase over the previous year. T

Amid a mountain wilderness, a new highway system rises, featuring Spain's highest viaduct For years, motorists and truck drivers in northern Spain have had to endure using a dangerous road liable to traffic hold-ups, delays and accidents, and frequently impassable in the depths of winter. In any event it is a slow and tortuous climb from Molledo on the Cantabrian lowlands up the N-611 road through the Cantabrian Mountains to Palencia, on the Meseta, Spain's high central plateau.

Innovations in materials technology, as well as machines, could provide a major boost to the concrete paving sector - Mike Woof reports Development of new material technologies for the concrete paving sector continues apace and the latest innovations could provide the biggest boost for this market in many years. High performance cementitious material (HPCM) is an innovative concept that has been developed and tested for road surfacing applications as part of a project in which the UK's Transport Research La

In 2007, Tecnotest introduced its new technology, Silent & Cold Power which applied to its new line of high end compression machines for concrete testing, and this has recently been applied to the company's machines for testing cement. It is now being offered in a new line of models: the new KP 200/A (for tests on cubic specimens 15cm/side) and KP 200/L (for testing cylinders diameter 15cm x 30cm high and 16 x 32cm high, as well as 15cm/side cubes).

Modern technology is making testing more efficient and reliable, increasing productivity and reducing costs, as Patrick Smith reports A few years ago, visual inspection of an 18-year-old bridge by ARRB in Australia identified considerable cracking in the precast, prestressed deck planks as well as in the cast in situ deck overlay. Laboratory examination indicated that the deck planks and the deck overlay were suffering from a strong case of alkali-aggregate reaction (AAR). Testing of concrete cores drilled

New technology broadens Sandvik's offering for crushing and screening. Mike Woof reports Sandvik is making a series of upgrades to its crushing and screening line in jaw and cone crushers as well as wear parts, and these should suit an array of applications ranging from small recycling operations up to large quarry sites. At the more versatile end of the range is the new CJ208 jaw crusher, the latest addition to the CJ200 series jaw crusher line-up. This crusher is the smallest of the CJ200 Series and offer

The drill and blast contractor Technical Drilling and Blasting in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is standardising on Sandvik rock tools for its fleet of drill rigs. The firm operates across Fujeirah, providing quality gabbro aggregates for construction projects in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Recognised as one of the worlds hardest rocks, gabbro features a typical density in excess of 3tonnes/m, a crushing factor of 10 and a 61% silica content and demand remains strong for this quality construction material. Every

Turning aggregates production into a truly industrial process and providing customers with accurately fine-tuned aggregates mixes is the secret behind the success of Vezzola, a family-owned company with operations in Italy's Lake Garda region. Vezzola's fully-equipped stationary plant in Montichiari, probably the country's most modern facility of this type, can produce up to 500 different aggregates recipes. The plant is another successful delivery by Metso's Mining and Construction Technology. Processing s

Multi-award-winning bridge designer Michel Virlogeux was the keynote speaker at the recent Austroads Bridge conference, held in Auckland, New Zealand, last month. He had a simple message: Bridge design is the realm of the engineer and should not be given to architects. "Bridge architecture, bridge aesthetics, bridge elegance is the problem of engineers. We must not leave this major part of our job to architects," he said. "I always work with an architect, but the architect is not selecting the structure. To

Imaginative formwork, often using modular components, is helping to shape some challenging bridges worldwide. Patrick Smith reports Traffic volumes in and around Prague have swollen massively in recent years, pushing the existing road network to the limits of its capacity. To permanently ease congestion in the Czech capital's centre, a multi-lane orbital motorway is under construction as a high capacity bypass for central Prague and to link up all the motorways and other major highways radiating from the ci