Winter damage of porous asphalt; Case study using a meso-mechanics based Tool for Lifetime Optimization of PA

Winter damage of porous asphalt; Case study using a meso-mechanics based Tool for Lifetime Optimization of PA

Mohan, S.A.

Molenaar, A.A.A. (mentor)
Huurman, M. (mentor)
Van der Veen, C. (mentor)
Jacobs, M.M.J. (mentor)
Houben, L.J.M. (mentor)
Bennis, T. (mentor)

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Structural Engineering

Road and Railroad Engineering

2010-12-10

With an increasing population in the Netherlands, people started to live relatively close to the primary road network. This led to major noise hindrance issues. As a solution it was decided to apply porous asphalt surfaces on the primary road network. These types of surface layers have a relatively open structure compared to traditionally applied dense asphalt mixtures. Application of porous surfaces brings along their first major advantage: noise reduction. A second major advantage of porous asphalt layers is an increased safety during rainfall. Due to its open structure water is stored and moved horizontally within the layer which reduces splash and spray effects and thus increases the visibility of drivers during rainfall. On the other hand the major disadvantage of porous asphalt layers is durability. The decisive factor for the relative short lifetime of porous asphalt is the loss of aggregates from the surface, also known as ravelling. This type of distress leads to a rough surface and decreases the material’s noise reduction potential. Further on the loosened particles cause damage to cars. In the winter ravelling develops at a much higher speed. This results in totally damaged sections as was noticed during the winter of 2009/2010 in the Netherlands. In this research a recently developed Lifetime Optimization Tool for porous asphalt was used to find out why different sections of the primary road network showed this type of excessive damage. Therefore LOT required information about the load, geometry and the response of these failed porous asphalt sections. In this research eight different sections were studied. The required input for LOT was determined directly from these eight sections. The results showed that in the winter the main cause for this increase in damage is caused by the reduced relaxation potential of the mortar of the mixture. Further on the calculated performance of the eight different sections was compared with the observed performance during the winter of 2009/2010 and it was shown that they were in good agreement with each other. From this it was concluded that the Lifetime Optimization Tool is capable of explaining winter damage of porous asphalt concrete

ravelling
porous asphalt
winter damage
LOT

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:6e187b10-66e4-4cae-9fe3-aaf75e31062b

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2010 Mohan, S.A.