Features

When Dubai Airport contacted Waterblasting Technologies it faced a number of challenges. One was finding a waterblasting system that would operate successfully in the 42º-52ºC daylight heat of the summer and also to find the fastest and most productive waterblasting system because of very limited runway closure time. Chemicals, shotblasting and other waterblasting equipment had been tried on the runways, but eventually engineers and management chose the Stripe Hog SH8000T manufactured by Waterblasting Tech

Marini has been involved for some years in supplying asphalt plants to Indian companies involved in road and airport construction programmes. Through Marini India, the Fayat Group company installed what it claims is India's "greenest asphalt plant" for Navayuga Engineering Company, which chose a Marini MAC plant for work on the PPP Armur-Adloor Yellareddy road project on the Nagpur-Hyderabad section in central India. Marini says that its new generation of energy-efficient asphalt plants has been devel

With the Tier 4 interim/Stage IIIB emissions requirements due next year, further upgrades will be required for all wheeled loaders sold in Europe and North America. In the mean time manufacturers are focussing on improvements that cut cycle times, boost productivity and reduce downtime for example. From Doosan comes the DL420 wheeled loader, which takes over from the previous DL400 and is aimed at use in a range of materials-handling work. The DL420 features a 4m3 bucket and is a 22.3tonne machine that

New regulations and technology are driving change in the soil compaction sector - Mike Woof reports. The impact of the Tier 4 Interim/Stage IIIB emissions regulations has been hard on some machine sectors in particular. Sloping engine covers have been introduced in several equipment categories as a way of improving visibility for operators, including soil compaction machines. At the same time, new machine guidance technologies have been developed and introduced to the soil compaction market, boosting produc

High performance backhoe loaders from Hidromek can compete with leading brands on performance - Mike Woof reports Turkish manufacturer Hidromek is looking to take a larger slice of the international market with its newly upgraded backhoe loader models. The firm currently sells machines in 50 countries worldwide and intends to boost its market profile. Marketing manager Levent Karaa aç said, "We will be a global brand." This family owned firm has come a long way since it was founded in 1978, manufacturing a

A Colombian contractor tackles specifications for asphalt road work with Astec equipment. Award-winning Colombian contractor MHC has upgraded its Astec Portable Double Barrel plant to handle highway and other projects. The plant, installed in Bucaramanga, equipped with two RAP [recycled asphalt pavement] bins, a Double Barrel Green System, and one New Generation silo was bought by MHC in 2009. It has now received a second silo and a truck scale extension.

Infrastructure construction in China is booming as never before, but sealing the world’s longest immersed tunnel is a technically complex engineering project. The impressive Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau fixed link project in China includes an immersed tunnel with a record-breaking length of almost 7km. In 2009 construction began on a project to link the island of Hong Kong with Macau and the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai. The link will be one of the region’s most technically complex engineering projects ever.

Greater precision is helping blur the boundaries between GIS technology and design software While GIS map based technology has extended its range across an ever more universal spectrum of uses in the highways sector, it is increasingly showing weaknesses for engineering purposes. It is very often not accurate enough. This has not mattered previously because the GIS tool has been seen essentially as an automated version of paper based systems from the design department's point of view. Where engineers