It was “dirty work” for drainage engineers from Lanes Group in the UK when they recently removed 400tonnes of silt and debris from a culvert in northern England.
Before sludge removal started, the 3m-wide concrete box culvert under the A38 on the outskirts of the city of Derby had been full almost to its roof.
Lanes Group's East Midlands depot, based in Derby, desilted the culvert in a 17-day operation for North Midland Construction, working for Highways England, under its civil engineering framework.
UK-based Macleod Simmonds Ltd (MSL) has launched a GPR (Ground Probing Radar) consultancy providing both a survey service and software package which, the firm says, takes the output from multi-antenna surveys to a “whole new dimension”. The firm says it can now provide survey capability for almost any type of terrain, application or location that end users might require. For the existing roadway or smooth surface terrain survey location, MSL has a Carriageway System based on a multi-antenna set up from Ital
A major new road tunnel project is being constructed in Switzerland – Mike Woof writes
Construction work is now underway in Switzerland for the new Belchen Tunnel bore, a project that has resulted from the country’s long-term infrastructure planning. The building of this latest tunnel is important for Switzerland economically as it will deliver an upgraded link for a major transport infrastructure connection. When it is complete, the tunnel will form part of the vital A2 route between Basel, in the north
New developments in tunnelling technologies offer contractors greater efficiencies when constructing new bores. Tunnel boring machines (TBMs) are widely being used in major projects such as the Brenner Base Tunnel in the Austrian Alps. Full face TBMs are highly sophisticated machines featuring a rotating drilling head, which removes the material, and, depending on the type of construction, secures the excavated tunnel with shotcrete, rock bolts and wire mesh or prefabricated segments of reinforced concrete.
