Event | December 12, 2022

ViaCalco Symposium Budapest - a great success

On 8th of December 2022, III. ViaCalco Symposium, organized by Carmeuse Hungary, was held in the Ceremonial Hall of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

The symposium began with a welcoming of guests by Christophe Denayer, professor Dr. Török Ákos Head of Department of Engineering Geology and Geotechnics and Zoltán Varga.

Christophe Denayer, Senior Market Manager for Construction in Europe, started the line of presentations together with the application technology team of Diana Oprean, Radu Monsteanu and Zoltán Varga about A sustainable geotechnical solution and Quantification of carbonation rate for lime in soil treatment.  They introduced one methodology to be used in a megaproject in the north of France, according to recent research on the performance of lime-treated soils for the construction of dykes and dikes. This is a 106 km new large-scale canal project, which requires more than 70 million cubic meters of earthworks to be completed over a 4-year time span.

Colette Gregoire, Senior Researcher at the Belgian Road Research Centre, introduced the new publication. Soil treatment with lime - European experiences for soil improvement and soil stabilization - State of the art. The main chapters of the document were presented, such as the principles of lime treatment, laboratory studies, implementation and control, the market, lime as a sustainable solution and case studies.

Assistant Professor of Department of Engineering Geology and Geotechnics, talked about the possibility of using soil stabilization in earthworks according to the renewed UME and explained the clear classification of soil stabilization in the classification of soils in order to allow the use of soil stabilization and thus reduce the amount of granular material. However, materials meeting these increased criteria must be produced within prescribed limits, as the durability of earthworks is of national economic interest.

Tóth Szilvia, Laboratory Manager of Innovia Ltd., presented the practical implementation of the hydraulic binder soil treatment. 

Colas, represented by Orbán Bence, Technologist and Dr. Füleki Péter, Chief Technological Engineer, who provided us with a laboratory testing perspective on the laboratory testing requirements for the specific project presented, in the areas of soil stabilization and earthwork. They presented the possible future directions in road structure measurement that could increase the importance of soil treatments and soil stabilization in the design and dimensioning of earthwork structures.

In his presentation, István Nyári, Laboratory Manager at Fugro Consult Ltd.., detailed the laboratory testing program required for soil treatments involving the addition of binders. He gave the main details of the standards included in the test programme and the performance indicators tested.

Hugó Bőkuti, CEO of Inreco Ltd, whose topic was Soil stabilization, cooperation beyond the country, spoke about the profile of the company and their cross-border activities. Cold milling is one of their major business domains and they offer various asphalt and concrete milling methods such as fine and super-fine milling or profiling.

Zoltán Varga closed the conference with a presentation on future developments in the production of new hydraulic mixtures for all Carmeuse plants, aimed at reducing our ecological footprint. Our planned developments in this area do not involve marketing lower quality compounds but using the principles of the circular economy model.

At the event, representatives of Andreas Ltd. presented intelligent soil testing instruments ranging from load capacity meters to a double-scale hydrometer.

Full program and access to presentations, here.