EUROCK - SANRAL leaving no stone unturned
The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) will join the international community to attend the 18th International Conference on Rock Mechanics (ICRM 2016) to discuss ways of developing better roads.
The conference, which took place in Cape Town on 3 and 4 November, aimed to host leading academic scientists and researchers to exchange and share their experiences and findings in rock mechanics.
In essence, engineers and scientists in the applied earth scientific sector had the opportunity to present papers and discuss new trends, recent innovations as well as practical challenges in the field of rock mechanics and the possible solutions thereof.
All interested participants needed to submit their papers months prior to the conference, to be blind reviewed by qualified reviewers, and later to be distributed to participants at the conference registration desk on the day.
According to Pierre Roux, Geotechnical Support at SANRAL, the roads agency made no submission for improved road surfaces; however, it's currently working on various earth scientific approaches, such as satellite and geophysical airborne technologies towards the identification on the demarcation of geotechnical hazards and opportunities along road alignments.
"We presented a paper at the 17th ISRM EUROCK 2016 and it was well received. However, all the abstracts and papers deadlines have already closed for the 18th ISRM conference. Depending on the outcome of our pioneering, applied earth scientific work on shallow engineering geophysics, which is currently applied on two of our projects; Moloto Corridor in the northern region and the N2 Wild Coast in the southern region, we will most likely be able to submit a paper at the 19th ISRM International Rock Conference 2018 in Russia."
Rock engineering, which looks at the mechanical behaviour of rock and rock masses, and how they respond to the force fields of the physical environment, has become a very important part of civil engineering like the construction of roads and other structures, including bridges, dams and energy plants.
It's important for engineers to understand the nature of the landscape before they start with construction to ensure quality and stability of engineering structures.By merely attending the event, SANRAL re-enforced its commitment to protect the environment and conserving natural resources, far beyond the legal requirements. Recently, the roads agency resorted to substituting tar with asphalt, which is bitumen-based and more environmental friendly and ensures improved road surfaces.