The ArmorZone temporary barrier is not only more sustainable than conventional road barriers, but it’s proven to outperform and outlive conventional designs. Roads & Infrastructure sits down with the conglomerate responsible for the product’s manufacture and distribution to learn more about its groundbreaking design.
Distracted, speeding or inexperienced drivers can pose a number of risks on local roads, not only to other motorists, but also pedestrians and nearby workers.
Protecting roadside workers has been, and is very much today, a topical subject, with many near-misses and too many fatalities still occurring.
The Traffic Management Association of Australia’s 2024 National Traffic Controller Safety Survey highlights this issue, with 49 per cent of respondents reporting that they’ve nearly been struck by a distracted driver, and 44 per cent saying they’ve had near misses due to speeding vehicles.
These are just some of the reasons why road barriers – temporary or permanent – are a standard requirement for most roadside, commercial and residential projects.
In a market that’s saturated, one roadside barrier has long been a successful option for road and infrastructure projects.
A plastic unit joined together using steel pins and filled with water, ArmorZone is a temporary work zone barrier, able to be transported and positioned easily due to its portable nature.
Owned and distributed by Ingal Civil Products, the ArmorZone has more than a decade of demand to support the company’s claim of the barrier being one of the premier options in the market.
In the past 18 months, Ingal Civil Products and its manufacturing partners have managed to build upon what was already a popular design. The aim was to make the barrier more sustainable, as John Annison, Operations Manager – Ingal Civil Products explains.
“About four or five years ago, the International Crash Rating System was upgraded because cars and trucks around the world were getting heavier,” he says. “Crash barriers had to be improved as a result and that’s when development began on the MASH version (Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware).
“A lot of our customers were upgrading their road barrier fleet to the new MASH versions, and they were looking for a way to dispose of their older barriers. We started to look into how we could recycle the older versions of the ArmorZone, as it’s a plastic product, but because it’s a crash-rated barrier, we couldn’t just add in any recycled plastic.”
Following interest from one of its largest customers, Annison and Ingal Civil Products realised the potential of including old ArmorZone plastic into brand new ArmorZone barriers. One of the first steps was partnering with organisations that could facilitate material testing and application.
This led Ingal Civil to the New Zealand-based roto-moulding experts in Vision Plastics and AR Moulding.
A team effort
The ArmorZone barrier is manufactured using a process called rotational moulding, a process by which a plastic material in powdered form is placed into a hollow mould, before being rotated and heated, making it a cost-effective process to manufacture large hollow plastic components.
Vision Plastics (VPLAS) is a rotational moulding material specialist. Steve Lewis, Sales and Marketing Manager, New Zealand – VPLAS says the unique formula used for the ArmorZone is what gives the product its premium performance characteristics.
“It’s a formulation that’s got a very good balance of stiffness and impact that’s required for such a product,” he says. “It’s a huge physical demand that’s placed on the plastic, which is part of the reason why we’ve got very tight specifications with our suppliers and the production process.
“We can’t substitute materials, it’s this material or nothing and it took years to develop it, which is why there’s been a number of unsuccessful replications of this product from other providers.”
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To manufacture the ArmorZone barriers, Ingal Civil Products works closely with AR Moulding, who (as the name suggest) help to mould the plastic and finish the final product to ensure that it fits industry requirements and expectations.
As Jason Walker, General Manager – AR Moulding recalls, ArmorZone had long been a successful product, but the recycling aspect added fuel to the fire.
“Ingal Civil Products’ client’s desire to be different in the market is really what initially drove the recycling aspect. They were making a push to contribute more to the circular economy, hoping to have an outcome that wasn’t just sending these products to landfill,” he says.
“We all said ‘yep, we can make that happen’. The focus then was to find a percentage/mix that would work, to see exactly how much recycled and virgin material we’d require to produce a stable product that would meet industry requirements.”
As a fellow New Zealand-based business, both VPLAS and AR Moulding share a close relationship. Lewis says this professional partnership, as well as VPLAS’ strict focus around quality, ensure that Ingal Civil Products can distribute the best product possible.
“AR Moulding is about a kilometre away from our site and I’m down there nearly weekly for a catch-up, which enables us to have our raw materials supply in line with their demands,” he says.
“It takes a group effort to make sure that Ingal Civil Products is adequately supplied. There’s a lot of requirements around recycled feedstock, which we’re sourcing from New Zealand and Australia. It’s important that the recycled feedstock is controlled and we put a lot of effort into ensuring that.”
It’s a relationship that’s strengthened by a commitment to helping both companies achieve quality outcomes for their customers, as Lewis adds.
“Because we’re just around the corner, I have an intimate knowledge of their processes, to the point that I can run their machinery,” he says. “We spend a lot of time at AR Moulding, ensuring that both ours and their processes are consistent. That includes testing, which there is a lot of before all boxes can be ticked and the barrier can be installed.
“The communication and relationship between AR Moulding and VPLAS is a hugely important part of this product’s success.”
Walker says this trust between the two companies has helped to make what was once a pipe dream – a reality.
“There’s no secrets between us,” he says. “Our common goal with VPLAS and Ingal Civil Products was to make a greener plastic product. Plastic is often considered a dirty word, because most associate it with soft plastics.
“With ArmorZone, we’ve shown that the final recycled product can perform as good, if not better than virgin materials. We’ve demonstrated that it’s feasible to reuse plastic to give it a second life, and even maybe a third or fourth life and so on.”
Path ahead
Despite only being released for a number of months, the ArmorZone – which satisfies both MASH TL-1 and TL-2 specifications – has already seen a high level of interest.
Annison attributes the majority of such interest to the changing needs of the market, where the depth of sustainable practices can make or break a tender submission.
“Both private and public sector projects across the country are adding sustainability clauses into their contracts, insisting that contractors and suppliers provide a product that’s sustainable and can be recycled,” Annison says.
“From a commercial point of view, having a barrier that ticks all of these boxes, that can give a commercial advantage, is a no-brainer. That’s being driven by our customers, as they’re the ones wanting to have sustainable products to offer in their hire fleets. The whole supply chain is on board as well.”
And Ingal Civil Products isn’t stopping there.
“It’ll take more testing and approvals, but we are looking at ways to increase the recycled content in the barrier. That’s the main driver at the moment, first and foremost to increase the recycled content. We’re fairly confident we’ll be able to,” Annison says. “It’s a great story and we’re just getting started.”
Owners of ArmorZone barriers in Australia and New Zealand can contact Ingal Civil Products for instructions on where to send their units for recycling into new ArmorZone barriers.
This article was originally published in the October edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.
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