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The future of Scotland's Forth Road Bridge is posing serious questions with a wide potential impact for the transportation sector.

Corporate results from a series of equipment manufacturers for the early part of 2011 all seem to agree that demand for machines continues to improve.

Special fabrics are often used in civil engineering works, including highways, to make soil stronger Geosynthetics have been used in roadway construction for thousands of years with natural materials being mixed with soil to improve quality and stability. While today's products are much more sophisticated, the principles are the same. For example, when used with soil, geotextiles (permeable fabrics) can filter, separate, reinforce, protect, or drain, and they are often made from polypropylene or polyester,

As powerful fabrics, geosynthetics and geotextiles have a wide range of applications in many civil engineering applications including roads and airfields. Geosynthetics specialist Tensar is introducing a radical new product that it thinks will revolutionise the construction industry. According to the company, its new product represents the "biggest advance in ground stabilisation technology for 25 years. Six years in development, it is said to offer major improvements in aggregate confinement and soil stabi

GOMACO’s 4400 slipform paver is designed for versatility, with the ability to handle a wide array of concrete paving and barrier jobs. Customers can select from a wide array of variations to suit specific needs or allow the machine the broadest array of paving capabilities.

Guntert & Zimmerman is now offering its new S600 multi-purpose slipform paver to the international market. The machine has been designed to be adaptable and versatile and can handle smaller projects. The firm says it meets a need for a small or medium, versatile, multi-purpose paver that retains the ability to achieve good smoothness, as well as being productive.

Fayat Group has developed the Tiltex swivelling clamp for sheet pile handling. Specifically designed for excavator-mounted Vibrodrivers, the Tiltex clamp improves the handling of sheet piles and the productivity on piling projects.

New ownership offers greater overseas potential for Barrier Systems

Further development of SCT's wooden and steel barrier systems has led them to meet a wider array of applications. The company has had particular success with its wooden barrier range in areas of natural beauty and hopes to capitalise on this as the wider range comes to market.

Barrier Systems says that its new tensioned barrier offers high energy absorbing capabilities in head-on collisions. The company says that this is because the X-Tension technology is a tension-based solution rather than compression-based. The new range delivers good performance in these applications, as energy is absorbed with resistance at the impact head rather than being transferred down the rail as occurs with other systems. Even high-angle (15° during testing) impacts on the nose resulted in the vehicl

Moves are being made to develop barrier protection for motorcyclists. Many public highway authorities take little note of motorcycle riders at present, considering them a small minority and assuming that any additional safety measures will be costly and provide little gain in saving lives. In spite of this narrow minded attitude, some manufacturers have recognised that niche opportunities exist to improve safety levels for powered two wheeler users through developing innovative new products. Italian barrier

Doosan Portable Power, who will be exhibiting at Intermat 2012, has introduced a new branding scheme for the company’s leading ranges of portable air compressors, generators and lighting towers.

Using a Perkins 1104D-E44TA engine, Bobcat’s TL470HF telehandler gets an output of 97.5kW. Enough, said the firm, to put some step into the 7,130kg machine, which offers a maximum lift capacity of 3.5tonnes and a maximum lift height of seven metres.

Two new short radius excavators are being introduced by Case Construction Equipment at INTERMAT. The Japanese-built CX235C SR and a prototype CX145C SR use low emission Isuzu engines with cooled EGR and a DPF to meet stage IIIB emissions requirements, and Case reckoned the new engines provide a 17.5% fuel consumption improvement over previous models, while simultaneously delivering up to 7% cent faster cycle times.

Bobcat has launched a sonic tracer system for use with its two largest 244cm and 274cm heavy duty grader attachments.

The DT12 crawler-mounted dumper can work as a self-loading unit to dramatically cut loading times while boosting efficiency, according to its manufacturers Wacker Neuson.

The smallest of Wacker Neuson’s new five-strong DT series of crawler-mounted dumpers being showcased at INTERMAT 2012, the DT05 has a loading capacity of 0.5tonnes and a machine width of just 66cm.

Building on its Wacker-Neuson partnering agreement for mini excavator production, Cat is to add two new mini excavators to its range at INTERMAT.

Cat will introduce its new F series backhoe loaders at INTERMAT, and represented by the 428F and 432F models.

Volvo’s D-series upgrades have been applied its short radius 14 and 21tonne excavators. In addition to their operating weights, the ECR145D and ECR235D differ in their engine types – the smaller model getting a four-cylinder 84kW engine, while the larger model gets six-cylinder power rated at 129kW.