Road Structures

The Italian contractor CMC Di Ravenna (CMC) will handle a series of road upgrades in Zambia. In all the Italian company will repair, improve and upgraded 292km of roads. Asphalt surfacing will be laid on the Kabwe to Piccadilly Circus and Mpula to Mansansa roads in Central Province. The project includes upgrades to 20km of urban roads in Mkushi and Kabwe. The Zambian Government of Zambia awarded the contract to CMC through the country’s Road Development Authority (RDA).

Tensar’s flexible and reactive approach to optimising pavement design has delivered cost savings on a project to expand a science and technology park in England. The US$6.7 million NETPark Phase 3A Infrastructure project in county Durham will see construction of a spine road and side roads. The road will open up 10.5ha of development land at the North East Technology Park. The ambitious expansion plans will create additional space for research and development companies which need room to prototype and scale

On Aug 1st 2017, it was 10 years since the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis collapsed. The bridge had been classified as structurally deficient and was undergoing repair at the time. However the repairs focussed on the decking rather than the structure, with the additional weight of the extra asphalt layers and the construction machinery parked adding to the total load and contributing to the collapse.

Major road and highway development will be seen in India as the country boosts its network. Meanwhile plans are also moving ahead for a major new bridge project in India. The highways development programme will see 15,000km of National Highways being built across India in the 2017/2018 period. This is a key increase from previous years. So far, 2,269km of the National Highways road construction links targeted for the 2017-2018 period have been built. During the 2016-2017 period, 8,231km of National Highways

Trelleborg has unveiled its innovative cast-in profile sealing system at the recent 2017 Rapid Excavation & Tunnelling Conference (RETC). The firm says that its latest cast-in profile sealing systems are designed to help ensure that tunnelling projects keep to project timescales and budgets. The design of the units also helps to shorten the production process of concrete tunnel gaskets according to the firm.

The Guatemala Government is now working on a plan to address the deficiencies in the country’s road network. Key issues include reforming State Procurement Law, giving greater authority to the general road agency, Direccion General de Caminos (DGC) and the Army Engineers Group, and stopping road projects that face serious problems.

Dutch construction company Ballast Nedam along with Belgian dredging company Deme and Australian investment bank Macquarie have won the Blankenburgtunnel tender in the Netherlands. The consortium - BAAK Blankenburg-Verbinding - will build the tunnel under the Nieuwe Waterweg river west of Vlaardingen, a city in southern Holland and on the north bank of the river Nieuwe Maas where it meets the Oude Maas.

The Perth Transport Futures project has reached a milestone with the placing of steel beams to support the road bridge on Scotland’s A9 dual carriageway.