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.