Materials Man

I hear magpies all over the place but not in Perth or the surrounding countryside. See former post on Magpies. Well last night the familiar chuckling call was heard from a a large silver birch in the next doors garden, and it startled me, a magpie ! here. You can’t miss a magpie, a wonderfully exotic crow and it gave my son (whom I called from the house) and I a decent fly by along the roofs, cackling as it went. My son remarked ” bet it has trouble finding a mate” he is not wrong, we have seen two magpies in 34 years, and I mean we as he saw the last one as well. Magpies are not welcomed by everyone and the added pressure on nesting garden birds is a particular issue with them, that and the added pressure from damn cats ever on the prowl. I heard on the news this morning about “super cats” large hybrid cats that have a waiting list and are thousands of pounds each. If a super cat appears in my garden it may be followed by lampost posters seeking a lost moggie. I could handle a magpie though.

Just a chance remark on the opinion that the poor will lose due to climate change, brought a response from a colleague that it might be the case but it is evolution. It might be evolution but it is not nature’s evolution, it is enhanced fast track evolution that has no predicable outcome. That’s the point, what if the climate change moves the gulf stream south? It has happened in the past, perhaps we will be joining the poor of the planet like in Bangladesh, in India waiting for a monsoon that comes irregularly and with more force, in sub-Sahara Africa drought after drought in some places like Sudan followed by floods.

Here is an excerpt from the UN’s World meteorological Organisation on unprecedented weather extremes in 2007

Four monsoon depressions, double the the normal number, caused heavy flooding in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh…. England and Wales have experienced their wettest May to July period since record-keeping started in 1766. In late July, swollen rivers threatened to burst their banks…..Late last month in Sudan, floods and heavy rain caused 23,000 mud brick homes to collapse, killing at least 62 people. (were they killed by evolution? my words) The rainfall was abnormally heavy and early for this time of year…….In May, swell waves up to 15 feet high swept into 68 islands in the Maldives, causing severe flooding and damage…. Also in May, a heatwave swept across Russia…… Southeastern Europe did not escape the unusual weather . The area suffered from record-breaking heat in June and July…..An unusual cold southern winter brought wind, blizzards and rare snowfall to various parts of South America, with temperatures reaching as low as minus 22 Celsius in Argentina and minus 18 degress Celsius in Chile in July. In June, South Africa had its first significant snowfall since 1981, almost 10 inches fell in some parts of the country.

Excerpt from the book  Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas L Friedman a book I was reading (and still am) on my holidays as was Barack Obama.

Buy the book, even if you read chapter four on Petropolitics it will inform you, as it did for me reading the book the seven sisters  in the 70’s.

Capitalism rules, have you seen the latest RBS advert with the fisherman extolling the virtues of a mobile bank? that really gets me fired up ” we’re here for you ” aye right”!

“We’re owned by you” would be more appropriate cause we blew it. Have they no remorse?

And to my colleague, how do the poor evolve?

They can’t, and thats his point, because they are poor they are vulerable and the weak will not survive and that’s evolution.

I did a talk to our graduates recently on pavement design with a construction director, I did the technical bit he did the money / risks bit. Directors don’t get to be directors in a LTD company without merit. For those of you mentally compiling a list of  directors without merit,  just ask yourself if they were good for the company, ie made money? So there are certain learning opportunities watching a director who has had training and experience that I will never have. It was a complete focus on “where’s the money?” ” and how can you lose it?” A money risk workshop.

Although I am never oblivious to money, it  can be a blinkered vision when you  concentrate on the technical bit, consultant pavement designers take heed!! for what I am about to reveal may sound counter intuitive.

So when instructed to do a similar talk to senior staff I decided to take it all of it on board myself, and what I have completed (but not yet delivered) was an introduction to the design principals followed by a lengthy exercise on IAN 73 and HD 26.

Now the exercise I speak of is a spreadsheet where teams will fill in the thicknesses from the design charts in IAN 73 and HD 26 for a MSA of 80, for various CBR formations,  and discussion will follow. I have Scottish market prices on the spreadsheet. This reveals certain outputs:

performance designs are more economical than restricted.

HBM bases are more economical than blacktop bases.

The cost of the whole foundation plus pavement has various drivers, but the foundation costs predominate, despite them being around a fifth of the whole pavement + foundation cost.

This means  the choice of pavement , ie cheapest with risk analysis applied, should mean that HBM  and performance design will predominate and class 3 and class 4 foundations are far too expensive.

This has singular outcomes particularly if oil/bitumen prices soar, which does affect HBMs cost, but not to the same extent as blacktop.

I did ask HA if a economical appraisal had been conducted and the answer  was no, but I have read that IAN 73 and HA 26/06 have been subject to an economical appraisal.

Well if my spreadsheet is correct then there are two (50% of the available performance designs) that will never be used !!