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The final seminar of the ARCHES and SPENS projects took place in Ljubljana on 27 – 28 August 2009. The two projects, which mainly focused on the road and bridge infrastructure needs of NMS and Candidate Countries of the EU, have now officially ended (31 August 2009). The seminar itself was a huge success attracting 120 people from across Europe and one representative of SHRP 2 USA. The audience, through the presentations, were provided with the objectives,  results and  achievements of the projects.

Apart from the presentations of project results, a general session on implementation of results was held. The speakers (Steve Phillips – FEHRL, Neil Hawks – SHRP 2, Ales Znidaric – ZAG and Bill Bird – EC) all laid emphasis on the important role implementation and dissemination  play in making a project a success. The consensus reached was that, much needs to be done to make sure both projects are effectively disseminated to end users across Europe.  

Technical excursions were also organized to test sites where implementation of project results had already taken place.

The test sites visited include:

• ARCHES Cathodic Protection test site. Innovative smart CP systems for bridges were designed and tested on a bridge in Slovenia. Three CP test systems were applied to three cantilever parts of two cross beams supporting a bridge deck.

• SPENS test site - road section with steel slags. To enhance sustainable road construction processes, four test fields, with slag aggregate for the wearing course were constructed. A visit to one of the test sites was organized by the SPENS Project Coordinator.

• ARCHES bridge weigh-in-motion/soft load testing test site. A bridge in Vipava was instrumented with a weigh-in-motion system. This system collects and processes the signals received, e.g. from a truck and in real time provides information about the vehicle. Such information could include axle loads, gross weight and axle distances. The system is an effective tool in measuring the real traffic loading.

• ARCHES test site – rehabilitation of Log Cezsoski bridge. A new generation of Ultra High Performance Fibre Reinforced Concretes (UHPFRC) was applied on the Log Cezsoski bridge where rehabilitation works took place in July 2009. As the project’s task leaders pointed out, UHPFRC for full scale application on bridges guarantees faster performance of construction works and longer lasting results.

The presentations and photographs will be available soon on the projects websites – arches.fehrl.org and spens.fehrl.org. See also the EC coverage