The Public Works Authority ‘Ashghal’ held an intensive workshop on November 20 and 21, 2018 to discuss and present the latest practices for the asphalt pavement using recycled materials. The workshop tackled the most important mechanisms and equipment used in asphalt milling and paving.

The workshop was organised by Ashghal’s Quality & Safety Department and ANAS Company. A number of international equipment manufacturers were invited under the auspices of the Public Works Authority to train 150 technicians from Ashghal’s contractors.

The latest practical experiences of international companies were presented in the workshop, where the processes of asphalt milling and asphalt paving were reviewed in addition to demonstrating the asphalt rolling process.

The workshop also included live demonstrations of the pavement equipment and the best methods used by international experts working in the equipment factories.

Raise the quality bar of projects
Eng. Khalid Al-Emadi, Quality and Safety Department Manager at the Public Works Authority, said: "As part of Ashghal's efforts to adopt the latest practices in asphalt road construction and pavement, a large and intensive workshop was organized in which the latest equipment used in road construction were demonstrated to Ashghal contractors, along with the best practices in this field, in order to benefit from the existing resources and reducing the cost of projects”.

The workshop aimed at the localization and utilization of such technologies to achieve the level of quality that Ashghal seeks for its projects.

Al-Emadi added that the workshop aimed to spread the culture of quality in the implementation of projects through the correct knowledge of paving mechanisms, which will reduce the cost of projects by millions of Qatari Riyals once implemented.

He explained that implementing the latest and best practices in road paving will achieve the purpose of road network, which is high efficiency in regards of bearing heavy vehicles and traffic flow as well as avoiding any defects that may distort the road thus reduce the cost of maintenance on the long-term and maintain the roads sustainability.

Recycling
The workshop addressed the use of recycled asphalt, which contributes to reducing the cost of materials used in projects by 15%, while achieving the highest quality.

Eng. Khalid Al-Emadi said that Ashghal has started to collect the waste of excavation and concrete crushing 4 years ago and prepared a recycling plan to eliminate construction waste. Ashghal has succeeded in using approximately 60 million tons of excavation waste and using it in sand layer for some road projects.

Ashghal also set conditions for project contractors in some areas to use certain percentages of recycled construction materials up to 15%, and continues to urge contractors to adopt this initiative in accordance with best practices and latest equipment and machineries.

Through the waste recycling initiative (such as asphalt waste, car tires rubber and iron slag), Ashghal seeks to use new economical and highly efficient construction mixes, in addition to changing the concept of road construction through reusing valuable resources and reduce the import rates of gravel and bitumen and reduce the cost of projects.

Intensive Training
It is worth mentioning that the most important value added to these workshops is training the technicians working for Ashghal contractors on the best practices of road paving equipment and machineries by the manufacturers. Training the technicians theoretically and practically will significantly reduce the errors and problems that hinder the implementation of projects due to lack of experience or misuse of equipment.

Ashghal has set out many requirements that contractors must abide by in terms of the equipment used in road construction or technicians operating them. This will increase the quality and smoothness of the roads and maintain their efficiency for years without defects and will decrease maintenance costs.

Ashghal's requirements also include the compliance with a certain level of operation and maintenance of the road construction machinery and equipment used in road paving, to ensure the required quality levels.