Preparations for the fifth Eurasphalt & Eurobitume Congress (E&E 2012) are well under way with the programme being fine tuned to meet expectations of the 800 plus delegates expected to attend.
Detailed presentations and information exchange will take place on all that is best in bitumen and asphalt technology, with particular emphasis on meeting the new challenges of tomorrow. For key players in the roads industry, this year’s E&E Congress looks set to be one of the most significant events in recent times.
Sustainability is the over riding theme with the three day congress formatted around nine sessions, eight delivered orally plus one poster session. Around 275 technical papers will feature, grouped together as appropriate under the session headings.
E&E 2012 will take place in the fascinating city of Istanbul, Turkey between 13 and 15 June. Such a congress is held every four years and the events are well respected around the world, as evidenced by the international nature of delegates and speakers alike. The content of each E&E congress reflects the global road industry’s commitment to keeping aligned and ahead of market trends and demands.
The call for technical papers for E&E 2012 went out last year and resulted in “an excellent response, better than ever before”, according to the event’s Technical Programme Committee Chair Mike Southern. “As expected, the papers stemmed largely from current research into techniques and materials to meet future market needs. What we didn’t expect was the amount of work being carried out focused in certain specific areas.”
One of these areas was that of lower temperature asphalts. ‘Warm Mix Asphalts and Low Temperature Techniques’ was not originally a session in its own right. However, the number of technical papers submitted to the congress which fell under the general heading of warm mix and low temperature technology persuaded the organisers to revise their initial programme and provide the topic with a session of its own.
Southern said: “We hadn’t quite anticipated the high level of research in this area. While reviewing the papers we had to acknowledge this distinct trend: hence the move to a dedicated session. You might say we were responding to popular demand!” Another revision to the organisers’ original session plans was due to the large number of papers falling into the category of ‘Durability & Performance’: this category has now been extended to two sessions, one featuring bitumen, the other mixtures.
“The E&E 2012 organising committee merits praise for its flexibility and determination to get the most pertinent up to date subjects in front of delegates,” says the President of Eurobitume Alberto Bardesi. He points to the inherent benefit of ‘trend identification’ gained by attendees of the congress: “Historically, E&E Congresses provide excellent indicators for those people and companies seeking direction to where they should innovate and position their services and products.”
