Successful EUPAVE workshop on “Long-Life and Circular Concrete Pavements for Sustainable Cities and Regions”, PIARC XXVIth World Road Congress

28/11/2019

The European Concrete Paving Association, EUPAVE organised on 7th October 2019 a workshop on “Long-Life and Circular Concrete Pavements for Sustainable Cities and Regions” during the PIARC XXVIth World Road Congress in Abu Dhabi.

Since the first edition, held in Paris in 1908, PIARC (World Road Association) organises every four years in a member country a World Road Congress with the aim to share techniques and experiences worldwide in the field of road infrastructures and road transport.

___________________________

André Jasienski from FEBELCEM (Belgium) opened the workshop and introduced EUPAVE to the 115 participants.

The first presentation was given by Tim Alte-Teigeler from Otto Alte-Teigeler GmbH (Germany) on “Concrete pavement preservation techniques”.  He gave more insight in the techniques of slab lifting and cross stitching as well as the full depth repair of concrete slabs using ultra-fast hardening concrete mixes.

Luc Rens continued with “Concrete surface restoration techniques”, mainly surface milling, grinding and the promising “Next Generation Concrete Surface”.

André Jasienski talked about his 40 years of experience in concrete paving, starting with a PIARC experimental road section in 1979.  He emphasised the importance of a good drainage system, a non-erodible base layer, the use of an asphalt interlayer and dowels in order to obtain a long-life performing jointed concrete pavement.

Özgür Yaman from the Turkish Cement Manufacturers’ Association (Turkey) presented “the challenge of starting with concrete roads – first experiences with jointed plain and roller compacted concrete pavements”.  The fact that RCC pavements can be built using asphalt finishers and roller compactors, thus currently available equipment, is one of the main reasons for the amazing growth and development in a few years time.

Anne-Séverine Poupeleer, Member of PIARC TC A1, Head of division for the Flemish Road Authorities AWV (Belgium) showed a diversity of sustainable applications for concrete pavements, “from public spaces to peak hour lanes”.  In a radius of only 25 km from her office, she presented a wide range of concrete pavements, built during the past 50 years: motorways in CRCP, airport pavements, cycle paths, walking paths in a park, urban streets and the development of a hospital area.

Then, Thierry Sedran, IFSTTAR (France) introduced the “Removable Urban Pavements”, an innovative system of hexagonal slabs.  It allows easily removing and reinstalling the pavement when utilities in urban areas need replacement.  The system had recently been improved for better load transfer in case of heavy traffic.  This type of reusable modular elements is a great example of circular construction principles.

A lively Q&A session followed the presentations and finally Luc Rens drew the conclusions and closed the workshop.