Features

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

Modern products are making life easier for those who have to look after bridges in need of repair Aproject to repair a bridge in the American state of Tennessee has brought safety benefits and improved the ride quality for drivers using the crossing. The Chickasaw Bridge spans the Ellington Parkway and it has benefited from a rehabilitation job by contractor Jamieson Construction. The roadway on the bridge was in a poor state and required frequent patching, and to tackle the problem, the Tennessee DOT consi

Cape Town's N2 is a strategic South African highway that connects the port city with the country's southwestern region. Due to increasingly heavy traffic on the highway, it was in need of an upgrade, and fast. So one of Cape Town's largest contractors, Vusela, was awarded the government contract to remove the asphalt layers and stabilise the sub-base to strengthen the road's load capacity in preparation for resurfacing.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge is at the stage that it cannot cope with much more traffic, yet the population of the Auckland region continues to grow at a steady rate. Coupled with that, the bridge is a key link in the most important transport corridor in the country, State Highway One. Without it, the country would struggle to function. Not only home to New Zealand's largest city and one third of its population, Auckland's port is one of the country's largest. Some 140m north of the city is Marsden Point, th

For 2009, the Intermat exhibition will prove a major event on the off-highway equipment calendar This year's Intermat construction equipment exhibition in Paris promises a great deal for the visitor. The show will feature a total surface area of 180,000m² including 30,000m² of outside demonstration areas and this represents 7% more space than for the previous exhibition in 2006. Some 1,320 companies are exhibiting and come from 43 countries, with 64% of exhibitors coming from outside France. Around 209,032

IRF's 2nd International Conference on Roads and Environment reveals how to make roads greener, cleaner and healthier, and follows through with action recommendations IRF's Conference in Geneva on 10-11 November, 2008 put three issues in sharp focus: innovative materials to save energy and other resources, inspiring solutions for water management; an integrated approach to noise and air pollution; and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions monitoring, accounting and offsetting. Some 140 delegates from 36 countries l

Anticipating new trends, the IRF organised a high level panel discussion on the promising and fast-growing market of carbon trading in the margins of the 2nd International Roads and Environment Conference hosted in Geneva, Switzerland on 10-11 November, 2008. Now is the time for the road builders to add trading to their armoury of carbon-reducing measures. Carbon trading has moved from the margins to centre stage. World economic growth may be stalling or going into reverse, but the search for post-Kyoto cl

The IRF's 2nd conference on roads and the environment addressed key transport targets, Mike Woof reports Reducing the impact of the road transport sector as a whole was the focus of the IRF's 2nd Roads & Environment Conference. Opening the event, Jean Beauverd, chairman of the IRF in Geneva said, "Evidence of global warming is now unequivocal. Even if we were to stabilise the effects of CO2 emissions, the effects would continue for decades. Eco-friendly processes have not yet reached the full acceptance tha