Civiltrain.nz

27/01/2023

Our latest young kiwi charger. Blake Dowdall Motorsport, a name to look out for.

Car's been re wrapped for the NZGP and the national series coming. We've got a new name on the car: Civiltrain.nz here's a word from them.

Civiltrain.nz are very proud to be associated with our newest young kiwi charger, Blake Dowdall, as he takes on the Formula Ford stars of today with an eye on a big future in motorsport.
As a company, we have partnered with several drivers over the years and have been active sponsors for over a decade. Our longest running partnership is with Supercars ace, Andre Heimgartner, who we started with in V8SuperTourers in 2013. We have also sponsored the following drivers: Scott McLaughlin, Paul Morris, Ant Pederson, Chaz Mostert, Jack Kofoed, Andy Booth, Glen Collinson, Bryce Fullwood, Jordan Michels plus a few other local drivers and public go-karts. With this history in mind, we are careful with who we pick to sponsor next to represent our company and brand, and Blake is a natural fit. We only back winners!
We are also active in the animal rescue and recovery space where we are naming rights sponsor of the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre and the fantastic work they do to look after and release all sorts of birds both onshore and offshore. We also partner with 2 dog rescue and rehoming charities, Saving Hope Foundation and Bay of Islands Animal Rescue.
Our ethos is clear: we work hard to upskill, train and mentor our clients in NZ and overseas which allows us to bring that ethos in to our marketing and charity strategies. Motorsport is the only marketing we do, and this means we only back drivers who show talent, but more importantly fit with our brand, which is ultimately about caring and exceeding expectations. On the other hand, our work with animal charities is to support the very beings that enhance our lives but cannot speak for themselves.
We look forward to watching Blakes progress with a clear goal in mind of Indy Car. Lookout for this up and coming star; he’s blindingly quick and not afraid to send it!

18/08/2021

Just a reminder. We are the only training provider in NZ to have created a dedicated and managed E Learning platform (March 2020). Thus lockdown training can still continue for our clients.

16/03/2021

We are pleased to announce the addition of a new Radiation Safety Officer (RSO) Course for C12 and C10, that is pre-approved by the Office of Radiation Safety (ORS) and MoH. This course is Online only and participants will be required to pass a multi choice quiz that is embedded into the module. This makes this course the only current, approved and online RSO course in NZ. Under new legislation, all Managing Entities that use Radiation, must appoint a RSO. This course covers this, and also applicants looking to obtain Use Licenses (XRF and service techs etc).

Simply visit civiltrain.co.nz and click on the E Learning option and navigate from there.

Big thanks to our kiwi IT partner, SproutOnline for making this happen.

01/04/2020

We are pleased to announce that all of our courses are now available on our new E Learning Platform.

https://civiltrain.co.nz/e-learning/

We hope this provides a secondary service to our customers while COVID-19 dictates things for a while. Learn while at home or anywhere using your phone, laptop, tablet and Smart TV.

We have also introduced our Member Forum, plus 'Quick-fire' questions direct to the tutor.

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23/03/2020

COVID19 UPDATE:
To all of our wonderful and loyal customers around NZ and the world, we have an important announcement regarding our training services and our vision moving forward.

Due to training being classified as non essential 'contact work' we are forced to cancel all up and coming courses to reduce risk to you, your families and us.

We are now working hard on getting our online learning platform ready to go - hopefully by the end of this week.

Once this is up and running, anyone with an internet connection can view the video presentations online and will get a hard copy of the course manual couriered to them. Any Q&A can be done over email, our Facebook, Messenger, text and phone.

We are here to serve the good people that work in civil and the other industries we are lucky to be part of. That focus WILL NOT CHANGE.

All this means is our typical training 'media' will be adjusted.

Courses to become available online in the coming days are:

- Efficient Compaction Operator Course (ECO)
- Efficient Compaction Advanced Course (ECA)
- NDM User Course (NDMUC)
- Radiation Safety as per Office of Radiation Safety Core of Knowledge protocol

We hope you understand our stance in the current environment. But the flipside is that it does present an opportunity to get our E Learning platform up and running. As mentioned, our support services are still intact, so call us if you have any dramas.

Lastly, we fully support the Governments action today. Stay safe everyone, and if we all follow guidelines etc, then we should be in a position to return to some sort of normality in a couple of months.

Cheers

Stu Moulding
TUTOR/DIRECTOR
Civiltrain.nz

07/02/2020

We look forward to continuing our sponsorship of our super fast kiwi, Andre Heimgartner for 2020. This year he is racing a Kelly Racing Ford Mustang, #7. We are so proud to still have the honours of being Andre's longest standing sponsor. Traditionally we have always had our white and orange logo on a black background on the visor space. Seeing as our Dre gets a shiny new white Pony, we thought we'd flip the colours a wee bit! Hope you like it 👌

20/01/2020

TECHNICAL BULLETIN: PROOF OF OVERUSE OF VIBRATORY ROLLERS

This could be quite a long winded report, but we will try to keep it short and sweet. As a Executive Summary, the overuse of Vibratory (Primary) rollers is relatively well known, however there is little to no literature out there to back this up. At Civiltrain we cover this exact topic in detail during our Compaction courses, and then prove the damaging side of primary compaction by way of a practical. But most of this is based on years of experience, and also seeing pavements fail well before their design life is reached.

There are many theories out there as to why pavements fail prematurely - one of those theories is that NZ aggregates are just not up to scratch anymore. I DO NOT buy into this argument at all. Our M/4 rated aggregates are just fine, as are most of the B-series NZTA documents for construction.

Anyway, without mentioning names, locations, quarries, plant etc etc, Civiltrain has been part of an exercise to determine just how damaging the over use of vibe rollers can be, especially when used in high amplitude 'vibe' for the construction of granular pavement layers.

Now before we get started, we all have to agree that vibe rollers do play a major role in granular construction. They compact from the bottom up, but in doing so rely on OMC and correct layer depth. As a rule, 4-6 passes is often enough (a 'pass' is from point A to point B, not there and back), but even better than this rule, is the fact that the drums will 'talk back to you' to let you know when the primary phase is done - something else we cover in our courses. Once that phase is complete, you can cut to formation with graders etc, and then apply static (secondary) only using non vibrating rollers and/or PTR (as specified in B-series specs). Remember the following: vibe is great to a point, but goes downhill very quickly, but static is king and virtually impossible to overuse so long as your moisture and traffic management is in place.

THE EXPERIMENT: By using our own Plateau Testing methods we were able to work patch A (red) to achieve 98% of MDD using primary and secondary, but with MINIMUM passes being adhered too, thus a PASS.
Patch B (green) had excessive vibe passes, and DID NOT reach 98% of MDD, and not adhering to MINIMUM passes, as per B-series specs, thus a FAIL.

By taking pre and post compaction PSD samples the results are obvious. Patch A (red) didn't shift within the prescribed PSD envelope, and maintained a passing Sand Equivalent (slightly different SE spec for this material).

Patch B (green) saw a massive shift in PSD, to the point where the material now doesn't meet spec. The SE also fails. This has drastically reduced the design modulus/strength of the material, which means the design life is jeopardised.

I wasn't expecting the results to be so dramatic because a PSD does not take in to account segregation. Also, the rock is one of the hardest in NZ, so getting the stone breakdown to the point where both PSD and SE failed is alarming, but the plus side is that it proves a point, and its something tangible road builders, contractors and engineers can make use of.

If anyone is looking for a reason as to why some pavements last only a fraction of their design life, then this is certainly a cause. I would go as far as to say that most premature pavement failures are due to the overuse of vibrating rollers (this is assuming that 'rookie' errors such as poor subgrade or lack of drainage and shoulder support is not an issue)

The final pics show the vast difference in surfaces between A and B. By the time B had reached a mere 95% of MDD (a number of hours later), patch A was at 98%, and the process of mosaic surface formation had begun. You can clearly see the difference, and there is a lot more going on out of sight as well.

The lab techs who took the samples for the post compaction PSD's noted the considerable difference in stone integrity between A and B.

I hope this (rather longwinded) report is of use to you. Please feel free to contact us via www.civiltrain.nz to discuss further.

Cheers
Stu
Civiltrain.nz

14/10/2019

Very honoured to have been a guest lecturer at MIT today. Great bunch of up and coming engineers!

07/09/2019

Great day with Higgins in Feilding this week as part of their innovative bootcamp. We got called in to provide some theory but the crux of the camp is the practical. In this case, building a roadway to the Manfield Chris Amon Circuit. This wee piece of road will eventually be sealed and used by the public. We went from super elevated sections to a traditional crowned road. Pegs are in the ground with the odd wonky one to get the grey matter going. Using CAT 12M grader to cut and form, and then a range of rollers to achieve our 98% of MDD, thus the same principles as a normal road. We were able to calibrate the machines including a personal fave, a vibrating PTR; a magic machine on river run gravels (zero pluck, plus primary and secondary compaction and surface prep all in the one machine). I take my proverbial hard hat off to the Construction team at Higgins. They know just how valuable it is to train up field staff so that they know what to look for. We were able to shape, compact and start on surface prep on the same day. If I had another hour or two I would have been tempted to get the drag broom on it. Great staff, great management and a great concept in the bootcamp. The 'Higgins Way' is to teach the necessary concepts and processes to all staff involved in construction. Keep going Higgins, you are smashing it out of the ball park - or race track!

29/08/2019

Our video blogs are going down a treat and have been viewed thousands of times and shared etc. We will now endeavour to do a few more and keep them coming on a regular basis. Do you have anything in particular that you would like us to cover? Cheers

07/08/2019

Today's exercise with CCL in Christchurch. One of my favourite tricks is the Plateau Test and effectively calibrating machines to determine how many passes and in what mode is required to achieve target densities. Plus we can also have a yarn about what to do next which is prepping a mosaic surface which is critical for interlock with your Asphalt or Chip Seal. Huge thanks to CCL for letting me do my thing on two of their sites. I look forward to seeing you all again and having another hoon 👌