Examining the effect of different super hydrophobic nanomaterials on asphalt pavements

Abstract

Annually large amounts of financial budgets are spent to improve the safety of the roads and airport runways in cold regions. One of the most important parameters in safety and reduction of accidents is the slipperiness of road surface during snowfall. The presence of ice and snow on the surface of the pavement increases the number of road accidents, and also causes the cancellation of flights. Thus, in order to reduce the adhesion of the ice and snow to the pavement and to eliminate them from the surface of the roads, using super hydrophobic coatings instead of traditional winter pavement maintenance methods can be a suitable solution. One of the main methods of detecting and evaluating hydrophobic surfaces is measuring the contact angle of the drop of water with the surface. For this purpose, the contact angle was measured in the presence of various hydrophobic coatings and with a specific weight percentage of sprayed material; and the consumption of 12 g of hydrophobic material was measured on 6 cm × 6 cm of asphalt samples. By examining the contact angle measured on the asphalt samples with 8 different hydrophobic materials; hydrophobic acrylate W4 with the chemical formula of (2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5-Octafluoropentyl methacrylate) has the largest angle contact so that on the average it increases the contact angle of asphalt surfaces from 75 to 156, and makes the asphalt pavement surface super hydrophobic.