The Australian Society for Concrete Pavements (ASCP) held its 3rd biennial Concrete Pavements Conference July 20-12, 2015 at the Breakfree Aanuka Beach Resort in Coffs Harbour, NSW, Australia. According to ASCP Director, Kevin Abrams, the Conference was “an outstanding success”, attended by 161 delegates, with 14 delegates from overseas. The support and contribution from ISCP—represented by 4 overseas Directors and 2 Australian Directors—was greatly appreciated by ASCP. Also welcomed was a delegation of 8 from the Malaysian cement, concrete and quarry industries. Networking among delegates was noticeably strong, and the lawns with ocean views at the Resort provided a relaxed atmosphere for delegates to meet and talk during the morning and afternoon teas and lunches
The Conference was opened on Monday morning by Todd Myers, President of ACSP and closed on Tuesday afternoon by Peter Carson, Vice President of ASCP. Unfortunately, wet weather resulted in the cancellation of a planned visit to one of the nearby major concrete pavement construction projects on the Pacific Highway.
Monday night’s Conference Dinner was a lively event attended by 170 people. During the Dinner, ISCP President Neeraj Buch made a short presentation about current activities and developments within ISCP, and provided some insights into the 11th International Conference on Concrete Pavements (11th ICCP) to be held in San Antonio, Texas, USA in August 2016. A highlight of the dinner function was Neeraj Buch presenting Geoff Ayton with Honorary Membership to ISCP. Geoff was clearly surprised and seemed quite overwhelmed at being recognised with such a prestigious award.
Presentations included 2 Keynote addresses and 25 technical presentations. The presentations covered a wide range of topics including materials, equipment, design,construction & geotechnical aspects related to concrete pavements. While road pavements formed the majority of the presentations, others addressed port, industrial and airfieldpavements. On day one of the Conference, there were 2 parallel session streams—each with 7 presentations.
KEYNOTE ADDRESSES:
Bob Higgins, General Manager Pacific Highway, Roads and Maritime Services NSW gave the keynote address titled “Pacific Highway – Where we Have Come From and Where We are Going”, which addressed the development of the Pacific Highway from Sydney to the border of NSW with Queensland, a distance of about 824 km (515 miles) to divided carriageway, two lanes each carriageway (or more). Several hundred kilometres of highway remain to be completed in the northern coastal region of NSW—with a completion date of December 31, 2019—with an expenditure in excess of $8 billion Australian Dollar (AUD) over the four years ($5.85 Billion USD). On completion of the Pacific Highway to dual carriageway, the major traffic route in NSW (from the southern border with Victoria to the northern border with Queensland) will have been completed. This is a distance of about 1,367 km (854 miles), and is the major road link between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane—especially for heavy vehicles. This large investment in road infrastructure has brought about substantial reductions in travel times and accidents.
Peter Wellings, Major Projects Executive, WSP/Parsons Brinkerhoff and Deputy Project Director, Pacific Complete gave the keynote address titled “Woolgoolga to Ballina – A New Delivery Method”. The Roads and Maritime Services-NSW (R&MS) appointed a delivery partner to manage the delivery of this section of the Pacific Highway, about 155 km (97 miles). The ‘delivery partner’ model was adopted from that used for the 2012 London Olympics. His presentation addressed the overall program for completion of the Pacific Highway section and many of the future challenges. Some statistics for this project: two major bridge crossings, flood plain crossings, soft soil treatment, environmental management—including 4 endangered species and rainforest areas, 200 culverts, 14.2 million cubic metres of earthworks (18.6 million cubic yards), 2.3 million square metres of pavement (2.8 million square years), 1.8 million square metres of concrete pavement (2.2 million square years), 24 over bridges, 81 under bridges, and 100 fauna crossings.
International Presenters included:
- Neeraj Buch, ISCP President; Professor & Chairperson -Civil and Environmental Engineering-MSU, USA
- Juan Pablo Covarrubias, ISCP Director; TC Pavements, Chile
- Julian Dann, GOMACO Corporation, USA (MD Asia Pacific)
- Gary Fick, Trinity Construction Management Services, USA
- Jim Grove, Past ISCP Director; ATI Inc.-Iowa
- Peter Taylor, ISCP Director; NCPTC-Iowa, USA
- Alan Ross, BOSFA, NZ
- Xuhao Wang, ISCP Member; Institute for Transportation-CP Tech Center, USA
Local (Australian) Presenters included:
- George Vorobieff, ISCP Director; Principal Pavements, Materials & Geotechnical Engineer-RM&S, NSW, AU
- Anna-Carin Brink, ISCP Director; Principal Pavement Engineer-AECOM, AU
- Geoff Ayton, ISCP Member; Independent Consultant-Sydney, AU
- Craig Whitaker, ISCP Member; Senior Concrete Engineer-Leighton Holdings, AU
On Wednesday following the Conference, the ISCP Directors met with the ASCP National Executive to discuss matters of common interest, furtherance of the good relationship between the two organizations, and a review of the “Memorandum of Understanding” which was originally signed in Australia, August 2007.
For the PAPER TITLES and AUTHORS, please click ASCP 2015 Conference – Papers and Authors.
For the ASCP 2015 Conference Brochure, please click here.
To see the article “ISCP Names Geoff Ayton ISCP Honorary Member”, please click here.
For 3 ISCP pre-conference articles on the ISCP website, please click here (November 2014); click here (January 2015); and click here (April, 2015).
