Efficiently demolish three traffic circles with Epiroc

Saes delivers five demolition hammers to Gebr. van den Brand en van Oort

The province of North Brabant is working with BAM Infra Nederland, the province's main contractor, together with the Maashorst municipality to improve traffic flow on the N264 between the A50 and Odiliapeel. Part of this project is the replacement of three turbo traffic circles with intelligent traffic control installations. For the efficient demolition of the reinforced concrete turbo traffic circles, Gebr. van den Brand en van Oort called on the knowledge and expertise of Saes International, which supplied five Epiroc demolition hammers with blunt chisels for this project.

Gebr. van den Brand en van Oort (GBO) is a family business pur sang and with some 50 employees active in earthwork, demolition, rubble recycling, sand extraction and transport. "We work mainly for the ground, road and hydraulic engineering, industry and residential construction, municipalities and maintenance services, contracting companies and, of course, private individuals. We have two permanent rubble recycling locations in Uden and in Oss and also have a certified mobile crusher that is deployed on project sites to crush rubble in various grades," says director Wilko van Oort.

"All the demolition work we usually provide in direct contracting for various governments, private individuals, (agricultural) companies and construction companies, while the earthwork is usually done in subcontracting or as a partner of road builders. We take care of the complete picture for our client: from demolishing the road section, transporting waste materials, supplying our own recycled raw materials and constructing new roads to finishing the new verges after asphalting. We also have our own sand quarry and, of course, a modern and sustainably equipped fleet of machinery and vehicles."

In the backyard

The N264 is in GBO's backyard. "Believe it or not, but we laid the foundation for the turbo traffic circles here 17 years ago, so now they are giving way to intelligent traffic control systems," says Wilko. Traffic flow is still good now, according to the province, but traffic is only expected to increase in the coming years. With more traffic, the traffic circles will fill up and so traffic will get stuck.

An intersection with dynamic traffic lights promotes traffic flow and is also safer, including for traffic entering from side roads. "Our scope for this project is the demolition of three traffic circles commissioned by BAM Infra, two of which have now been implemented. The last one will be demolished next year due to challenges regarding nitrogen regulations."

Coarse artillery

The first traffic circle GBO has taken care of is the one at the Wilhelminastraat in Uden. Wilko: "Given the size of over 6,000 m² of continuous reinforced concrete and the fact that the job was to be done in one weekend, exclusively during the day, heavy artillery was in order. Because we perform such heavy work only sporadically in road construction, we always call on the services of Saes International for those specific situations."

Van Oort continues: "In this case, we sat down with Jeroen Hornman of Saes to put together the right tools for this job. Normally, we always break this kind of concrete with a blunt tip, so that a bucking effect is created and the reinforcement is well knocked loose from the concrete. That way we have to crush as little as possible. Saes has such a chisel 'just' in the range and delivered the Epiroc's with a chisel without a point."

Pretty quiet 

In total, GBO hired five Epirocs from Saes for that first traffic circle. "We were working with a total of seven crawler cranes. Only during the day, in order to minimize the inconvenience to the surrounding area," Wilko explains. "Despite the enormous amount of reinforced concrete with longitudinal steel reinforcement of around 16 to 18 mm, the demolition went smoothly."

To avoid splashing concrete and further muffle the noise, the demolition hammer was "encased" with car tires. "By the way, the Epirocs are already pretty quiet by nature," notes Wilko. Meanwhile, the second traffic circle on Karrevracht in Uden has also been demolished. "This one was partially demolished during the week and the other half on Friday night/Saturday morning. For this we used three Epirocs from Saes."

Saes International is a trusted and regular partner for GBO. "We rent equipment from them more often. Saes likes to think along with us and is at your service day and night, so to speak. A nice party to do business with and they have a good product. Especially for this heavy work, Epiroc is simply the best demolition hammer," says Wilko. "Also for the last traffic circle we will definitely call on Saes again next year."