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Legacy Building Solutions has designed and built two new salt storage and winter de-icing operation facilities for Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) in the United States. The tension fabric structures, situated near Markle and Westfield, provide each site with a salt storage capacity of 2,993tonnes — enough to cover several months of winter road maintenance.

The use of GPS-inclusive technology is proving invaluable to contractors responsible for major transport-related construction projects across the globe. Guy Woodford looked at some of the latest and imminent site solutions featuring GPS Staff at Trimble Heavy Construction based in Sunnyvale, California recently finished developing three new solutions for connecting the construction site. The Trimble Connected Office, the Trimble Connected Controller and the Trimble Connected Machine, are all now available t

Sandvik has supplied an aggregate plant to the DooWon Development Company to process granite at its Jungeub quarry in JeonRa province, South Korea. The supplied equipment is processing blasted rock from a feed size of -900mm in order to produce aggregate for the Korean construction industry, with the product fractions ranging from 0-5mm to 13-25mm, at a required rate of production of 500tonnes per hour.

Legislative and economic factors are impacting upon the earthmoving equipment market - Mike Woof reports No-one who has any connection with the construction equipment sector can have failed to notice that increasingly tough emissions legislation has changed the shape of machines over the last 10 years or so. A series of targets have been set and met with regard to the exhaust emissions permitted from off-highway machines used in North America and Europe. The latest round of requirements has seen the intr

Police in Sweden had to deal with a rather tricky individual recently who was attempting to hibernate in his car. The man had been found a few hours earlier by two snowmobile drivers. Seeing the snow-covered Jeep Cherokee, the snowmobilers were concerned that someone had crashed and was trapped inside. The car did not contain any drink or drugs and the man spoke coherently with the snowmobilers but they were concerned at his condition as well as the overpowering smell from inside the vehicle, and contacted

Fast food is about to become faster in Japan under a new plan that will allow hungry motorists to place their order through their car navigation systems. A number of companies have agreed to test the system, which allows drivers to browse menus, order and pay when they come within a certain distance of a restaurant. The system uses Japan’s traffic news network, which already provides traffic information to drivers. This system will allow drivers to view menus on their navigation units of nearby restaurants

An Australian man has had to make a somewhat embarrassing apology to his father after crashing a treasured classic racing car. The man was competing in a car rally in Tasmania, taking over racing the Ford Capri after his father injured his back earlier in the competition. The father had warned his son neither to come second, nor to crash the car. However, one corner proved too much for the man’s ability and he lost control of the car as he roared around the bend at some 130km/h. The car left the road, flew

Google has removed an image from its popular street view service that had attracted unwanted attention on the internet from sharp-eyed, and sharp-tongued, commentators. The image, shot in the German city of Mannheim, apparently showed a naked man climbing out of the boot (trunk) of a Mercedes. He was watched as he did so by a somewhat disinterested dog lying close at hand and surrounded by items presumably removed from the vehicle. Numerous comments were posted with regard to the image and speculation was r

A 20% rise in visitors and a 15% increase in exhibitors at this year’s CTT 2012/CONEXPO Russia, compared to 2011 show levels, illustrated the attraction of big infrastructure project spending Russia to the world’s largest construction equipment companies. Major global brands such as JCB, John Deere, Volvo Construction Equipment (CE), Komatsu, Liebherr, and Wirtgen were among the 911 construction equipment companies from 28 different countries present for the five-day event covering more than 124,000m² at th

A highly trained police officer managed to destroy the brand new high performance pursuit vehicle he was testing in the UK. The shame-faced officer was treated later for a back injury after smashing up the VW Golf R, although he later recovered from the injuries. No other vehicles were involved in the crash. Manchester Police Force has refused to explain how the accident occurred but has admitted that it may change its policy on officers testing vehicles as a result of this smash. The officer was suspended

A scooter rider in China has learned the importance of keeping his eyes on the road the hard way. The man was buzzing along the street on his zippy little scooter when his attention was caught by the presence of a woman he found attractive. Turning his head to look at the woman as he drove by, the man forgot that paying attention to the roadway while driving is a fundamental rule. Moments later he rammed into the rear of a parked van and was thrown from his steed into the path of another scooter, which then

An innovative solution to providing vital, low-impact surface water control for one of Britain’s largest local authority road schemes is said to have been recently achieved using Hydro International’s (HI) Hydro Vortex Drop Shaft  ow control technology. The new 7km bypass built by Costain at Church Village, near Pontypridd, South Wales, required careful planning to minimise its effect on the countryside and the local environment. Rhondda Cynon Taff Council needed to bypass Church Village to reduce traf c

A massive construction project has been underway deep in the heart of the Schnecktal valley area in Germany. From the surface, though, you would never be able to tell. The majority of the work is underground, as a joint-venture team led by German contractor Wayss and Freytag Ingenieurbau builds the nearly 7km long Finne Tunnel. After a few years of tunnel boring operations, the contractor is at work finishing the interior of the tunnel, slipforming first the tunnel’s floor and then a walkway with its GOMACO

New technologies are coming to market with regard to driving and supporting tunnels, with drilling and blasting and accompanying shotcreating technologies being widely used worldwide. Drilling and blasting can be a cost-effective method in the right conditions and in this segment Atlas Copco and Sandvik hold major market shares worldwide, although other firms such as Furukawa and Montabert also compete. Shotcreting equipment is widely used following after drilling and blasting, with CIFA broadening its rang

Infrastructure investment means that the road tunnel construction sector is healthy due to demand for new links – Mike Woof reports With many emergent nations investing heavily in infrastructure, the tunnelling sector is seeing extensive business at present. Tunnels provide key links in mountainous areas or in congested cities where building roads on the surface may not be practical. In Asia and Latin America, many key road connections are now being built underground to pass challenging terrain or provide

Asphalt plants were recently delivered for use in the biggest road construction project in Latin America. Meanwhile, a US navy base has just received a plant Guy Woodford reports Spanning around 1,000km, the Ruta del Sol highway in Colombia is the largest road build works currently taking place in Latin America. Brazilian company Odebrecht, part of the Ruta del Sol Concessionaire group working on sector 2 of the highway stretching 528km from Puerto Salgar to San Roque, connecting the capital Bogota to the

Sateco says its new detensioning spacer unit being showcased at this month Intermat 2012 event in Paris is a world first for the construction industry. The product is fitted with a side nut that acts as a valve, releasing the force acting on the formwork rod after concrete has dried. When the side nut is manoeuvred, the detensioning spacer unit is moved, thus releasing the pressure acting on the main nut. The main nut is then easier to unscrew, allowing faster and less strenuous form removal. Product design

RMD Kwikform has supplied its 80kN Rapidshor shoring for the widening of the Tolo Highway, running between the Island House Interchange and Tai Hang in Hong Kong. The project, overseen by main contractor Gammon Construction and set to be completed by the end of 2013, will widen the Tolo Highway from a two to four-lane carriageway in each direction, alleviating traffic congestion. “We were approached by [project] sub-contractors, United Soundfair and Richwell Engineering to supply shoring and formwork suppor

Rapid urban growth is resulting in massive mega cities with major transport needs and Mexico City is one of the world’s largest – Mike Woof reports Mexico City is a vast, sprawling metropolis and one of the world’s largest cities, resulting in huge problems for its inhabitants, particularly with regard to infrastructure. Measuring population size is an inexact science for large cities as suburban areas can add to the figures considerably, especially in developing nations where unplanned expansion is as comm

New and highly regarded existing formwork systems have been used in major recent transport-related construction projects across the globe. Guy Woodford looks at some of their applications The multi-million dollar Mississippi River Bridge project in the United State is creating a vital new gateway between Illinois and Missouri. Central to the project is the realignment and reconstruction of Interstate 70 and a new landmark bridge, featuring two pylons projecting vertically from the Mississippi river bed w