BUENOS AIRES TO STAGE INTERNATIONAL CONCRETE BLOCK PAVING CONFERENCE :
Article Date: 04 April 2008
 SEPT (Small Element Paving Technologists), the international segmental paving association, will be holding its triennial conference and exhibition in Buenos Aires in October next year. This decision was confirmed in March at an executive workshop held in Sydney, Australia.
John Cairns, CMA (Concrete Manufacturers Association) director, who is a member of the SEPT executive committee, says that decisions on the venues for two subsequent SEPT events were also reached in Sydney, these being a workshop in Germany during May 2011, and the 2012 conference which will be held in Shanghai in October of that year. The last conference was held in 2006 in San Francisco.
“Shanghai was chosen as the venue for 2012 because it will be staging Bauma, the international trade fair for construction machinery, at the same time as SEPT. Germany was earmarked for the 2011 workshop primarily because it is by far the world’s largest user of concrete block paving. These conferences/workshops generate technical information on interlocking concrete pavements, permeable interlocking concrete pavements and paving slabs and attract worldwide interest,” says Cairns.
The SEPT committee, comprising of 20 CBP (Concrete Block Paving) experts from around the world, meet every 18 months, at the triennial conferences, and once between them, at the planning workshops. Besides having reached decisions on the venues for upcoming conferences, several papers were presented in Sydney, most of them on permeable paving.
Cairns believes permeable paving has a very important role to play in South Africa’s rain water management, but that its widespread deployment is dependant upon government intervention.
“Despite its obvious benefits, such as controlling storm water run-off, removing pollutants from rain water and conserving water, permeable paving will only take hold if it is mandated through legislation. In Germany, which is also the world’s largest user of permeable paving, taxes are levied on storm-water run-off. In South Africa, most new property developments, must now provide some form of water management system, either through attenuation ponds or permeable paving.”
Cairns says that South Africa will be the world’s second country to acquire formal mechanistic design software for permeable paving, PermPave. Developed in Australia by world renowned paving expert, Professor Brian Shackel and the University of South Australia, PermPave will be launched in South Africa later this year.
In addition to being the world’s most advanced permeable paving software, the South African version will be programmed with relevant information pertaining to local storm water conditions. Local seminars on PermPave will be held by Professor Shackel and Professor Beecham of the University of South Australia in July.
Cairns said that bonded pavements using flagstones was also discussed in Sydney.
“This type of pavement has open joints which are filled with a mortar. Problems have been encountered all over the world with flagstone paving for vehicular traffic and is generally not recommended for this type of loading.”
Members of SEPT’s executive committee, seen here during a workshop in Sydney, Australia. They are: David Smith (USA) (left), Frohmut Wellner (Germany), Ilan Ishai (Israel), Gille Wilbanks (USA), John Howe (UK), Timoteo Gordillo (Argentina), Alan Pearson (Australia), Brian Shackel (Australia), Li Lui (China), John Cairns (South Africa) and Jiandong Du (China).
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