Resurfacing Research Articles

Design of optical performance for self-luminous pavement materials

The lower visibility in the nighttime environment makes higher accident risks during driving. Using self-luminous materials in pavement construction can effectively improve the luminance of load surface, thus significantly improve nighttime driving safety. This study has designed three types of self-luminous pavement materials (SLPM) with different optical properties by incorporating long-persistent luminescent aggregates into the mixture and using polymer binders with varying degrees of light transmittance, such as transparent polyurethane, transparent asphalt, and traditional asphalt. On this basis, utilizing digital image processing techniques to compare the optical performance differences among these three SLPM and established corresponding computational models based on the obtained data to enable efficient and accurate evaluation of the optical properties of pavement materials. The experimental results indicate that the durability performance of SLPM gradually diminishes over time, and this degree of attenuation is negatively correlated with the light transmittance of the binder. Specifically, a higher light transmittance of the binder results in a smaller decline in SLPM durability, whereas a lower transmittance leads to a more significant reduction. The optical performance calculation model established by this research can predict the reflective performance of SLPM through the optical parameters of aggregate, binders, and the doping amount of long persistent luminescent materials. In addition, the model can accurately calculate the minimum content of self-luminous materials according to the optical requirements required by the project, which can provide a reference for the performance evaluation of self-luminous pavement materials and the selection of optimal proportioning scheme.

The creation and assessment of an electrical all-terrain vehicle and its effects on efficiency

Abstract The suspension system consists of tires, tire air, springs, shock absorbers, and connections that facilitate the relative movement among the axles and the automobile. Although ride quality and road holding/handling are mutually exclusive, suspension components nevertheless need to provide both. Adjusting suspensions requires striking the ideal balance. Maintaining maximum contact between the road wheel and the road surface is crucial for the suspension. The vehicle’s suspension greatly affects its handling; since the vehicle must operate on all types of terrain and retain ideal steering geometry, an adaptable system of suspension should be employed. The EATV’s suspension elements will be designed in Solid works, and the resulting model will be examined utilizing Ansys software for optimizing design variables while taking into account how they may affect the efficiency of other automobile parts through simulator testing.

Performance of natural asphalt as a paving material: A laboratory and field evaluation

The ever-growing need to build roads to meet the necessary transportation demands is challenging, especially for developing countries. Low-volume roads (LVRs) are usually the backbone of catalyzing economic growth in these countries. With impediments surrounding Petroleum bitumen (price fluctuations) and environmental concerns, scientists are putting their effort into finding an alternative. The presented research is an attempt to check if Natural asphalt can be used as a full or partial replacement of the Petroleum bitumen. To the best of the authors' knowledge, only limited studies have focused on characterizing and understanding the engineering properties of Natural asphalt. The available techniques do not provide reliable information to the road authorities and hence they are discouraged from using it in practice. Particularly for countries, where the Natural asphalt source is available, the overall dependence on importing the Bitumen could be substantially reduced. Empirical and experience-based design criteria may not be sufficient as the standards were never developed for such materials, hence, a scientific approach is required before bringing it into practice. In this research, Natural asphalt sourced from different locations in Nigeria was assessed. Before performing the mixture level tests using Marshall and Cantabro design methods, the rheological and fatigue properties of the extracted Natural bitumen were examined in the laboratory. In the design of the experiment, various percentages of Natural asphalt were added between 0 % and 20 % by total mix weight; implying that the remaining required fraction of binder was fulfilled by the addition of petroleum bitumen. By using a ranking system (supported by statistics), an optimal design of mixture was obtained which was used in the field (exposed to normal traffic) at 30 different sections. Overall, results showed a good correlation between laboratory and field performance as compared to the petroleum-based mixture which was used as a reference mixture

Research on the Rheological Properties and Modification Mechanism of Epoxy Resin/SBS Composite-Modified Asphalt

Both epoxy resin (ER) and SBS are considered effective pavement materials for avoiding ruts. However, epoxy resin asphalt suffers from poor low-temperate performance and a high material cost in practical applications. Aiming to tackle these issues, a new type of composite asphalt modifier (ER-SBS) has been fabricated by combining epoxy resin with SBS. This work prepared modified asphalt with different doping amounts using the above composite asphalt modifier (ER-SBS), intending to explore the properties of composite-modified asphalt and the modification mechanism of the modifier. Furthermore, the effects of the composite modifier at different doping amounts on the viscoelastic property of asphalt were explored through rheological tests, and then the prepared composite-modified asphalt was compared with matrix asphalt and SBS-modified asphalt. In addition, the modification mechanism of the composite modifier was investigated by fluorescence microscopy and infrared spectroscopy. The difference in pavement performance between the composite-modified asphalt and SBS-modified asphalt was compared by a rut test and dynamic modulus test. The research results showed that the composite modifier improved the high- and low-temperature performances and viscoelastic property of matrix asphalt. When the doping amount was raised to 9%, the composite-modified asphalt exhibited better a modification effect than SBS-modified asphalt. The rut test results indicated that composite-modified asphalt demonstrated a stronger deformation resistance than SBS-modified asphalt. The dynamic modulus test showed that the composite-modified asphalt has better viscoelastic properties and temperature sensitivity. Fluorescence microscopy suggested that the crosslinking between the composite modifier and asphalt forms a mesh structure which greatly improves its resistance to deformation. From infrared spectroscopy, the composite modifier clearly functions as a physical modifier.

Geothermal use of groundwater in tunnels combined with direct passive road surface temperature control

Geothermal use of groundwater in tunnels combined with direct passive road surface temperature control

Falling weight impact acceleration-time signals analysis for road modulus detection: theoretical and experimental investigations

Structural modulus detection is essential for construction and maintenance in road engineering. Falling weight impact loading method has significant strengths in large-scale, continuous, and rapid detection. To provide theoretical support for this, theoretical analysis and falling weight impact experiments were employed in this study to investigate the influence of road structure parameters and falling weight impact parameters on impact acceleration-time signals. First, the applicability of the Hertz model in road detection was analyzed, and theoretical formulas for peak acceleration amax and impact duration t2 were established, considering the perfectly elastic collision between falling weight and half-space. Second, the influence of layered structures’ properties on impact acceleration-time curves was studied through model box impact experiments. Third, field tests were conducted to study engineering applications. The results showed that the influence patterns were similar in both theoretical and experimental studies, with differences reflected in the time of compression and restitution phases due to the road materials’ viscosity and plasticity. Additionally, in indoor experiments, amax showed an excellent power function relationship with structural layer modulus, with R2 more than 0.95, and the contribution of each layer’s modulus to amax decreased from top to bottom. Finally, amax and resilient modulus of an old road also followed a good power function relationship, with R2 around 0.76. This study revealed that amax was recommended for road surface modulus detection based on solid theoretical and experimental support.

Optimized road noise asphalt pavements - The types of noise-reducing road surfaces

The noise has long been recognized as a stress factor for humans. A high level of noise has many negative influences on health such as: difficulty to concentrate, stress, health issues for the ears, and also has a damaging effect on the cardiovascular and endocrine systems. Road traffic is main source of total noise, especially in conurbations. In order to effectively reduce noise emissions, surface courses can be installed as road surfaces that generate particularly little noise in interaction with the vehicle tire. This paper delas with different types of noise-reducing road surfaces.

ANALYSIS OF THE DEFORMATION OF ROAD SURFACE CONSTRUCTION BASED ON MONITORING CLIMATIC FACTORS

The article presents the results of simulation of the deformation state of a road surface structure intended for traffic categories KR 3-4. Climatic factors such as temperature and humidity were obtained from a database collected based on the installed monitoring. The performed validation of the deformation state indicated a very good fitness of the model to the experimental results, provided that the viscoelastic model. The results indicated that the difference in pavement load time between 1 s and 1200 s in summer may result in an increase in horizontal deformation under the asphalt layer by 949%, and in winter by 74%. The calculated vertical displacement in winter after 1200 seconds of loading is equivalent to the displacement calculated after 1 second of loading the road surface in summer.

ENGINEERING-GEODESIC EQUIPMENT OF THE TERRITORY USED BY USING GEOINFORMATION SYSTEMS

The purpose of the scientific article is the implementation of an important part of the agricultural spatial data infrastructure, planning of the domestic economy using geographic information systems (GIS). Taking this direction into account, the work examines the following main elements of designing the domestic economy: location of settlements and economic centers; design of internal roads; placement of external engineering networks; use of types of land reclamation for agricultural purposes; allocation of land for the construction of roads of various categories of local importance; placement of agricultural machinery in land use; conduct a technical and economic analysis of the effective use of road junctions and reclamation works as an engineering structure, as well as systematize the engineering and geodetic process necessary to implement these studies based on GIS technologies. With the help of geographic information systems technologies, it will be necessary to determine the following directions of engineering and geodetic equipment of the territory: Information about road transport and roads, Roads in plan, longitudinal and horizontal profiles, Driving through bodies of water and bodies of water on the road, Road surfaces, Road surveys and design of agricultural roads, The basic principle of organizing the construction, maintenance and repair of agricultural roads.

Machine Learning and Linear Regression Approach to Model Unconfined Compressive Strength of Ceramic Waste Modified Soil as Subgrade Pavement Material

An effective application of artificial intelligence involves artificial neural networks. Artificial neural networks and linear regression models were developed to simulate the effects of using discarded ceramic waste as a subgrade for pavement. The ceramic waste was used at 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, 10%, 12.5%, and 15%. A sample with 0% ceramic waste was tested to serve as a reference sample. The dataset was produced from laboratory experimentation findings used to train, test, and evaluate the model. A training set, a target set, and a prediction set were created from the dataset. The artificial neural network MSE was 0.42-1.40, while the linear regression model range was 1.74 to 3.63 for ceramic modified samples. The R2 range for the ANN model was 0.85-0.92, and the linear regression model exhibited a range of 0.71-0.78. The ANN model was more accurate than the linear regression model. Future studies are required to compare different machine-learning approaches for predicting soil mechanical properties.

Dynamic Response Analysis of Asphalt Pavement under Pavement-Unevenness Excitation

This paper investigates and analyzes the dynamic response of asphalt pavement under pavement-unevenness excitation based on an orthogonal vector function system and efficient DVP (dual variable and position) method. Firstly, starting from the pavement unevenness of the vehicle excitation source, the pavement-unevenness excitation is established by using the filtered white-noise method, and the random load of the vehicle model is obtained by simulation. Then, based on the basic governing equation of the road-surface problem under the random load, the analytical solution of the road-surface mechanical response is obtained by using the orthogonal vector function system and DVP method. The effects of pavement-unevenness grade, vehicle speed, vehicle load, interlayer contact condition, and transverse isotropy on the mechanical response of the road surface are analyzed via the analytical results. The results show that DVP can effectively solve the dynamic response of pavements under the excitation of pavement unevenness; in addition, it can also be applied to certain situations, such as transverse isotropy of materials and interface conditions. The results show that the pavement unevenness does not affect the average stress and strain of each layer but has a significant effect on the peak value and dispersion degree. An increase in vehicle speed causes a peak in strain and a larger coefficient of variation. Poor bonding between interfaces can lead to increased stress and strain at the bottom of the surface layer.

How do Road Users in Mixed Traffic Perceive Risk Towards Each Other? A Comparative Study from a Developing Country

Many developing countries have high traffic accident rates due to the mixed traffic environment in which bicycles and motor vehicles travel in the same lanes. This paper examines the perceived risk among road users in mixed traffic. A questionnaire survey was used to obtain demographic information and self-reported risk perception among cyclists, motorcyclists, and drivers. Statistical analyses, including the T-test and ANOVA, were used to examine the relevant differences in risk assessment among the groups. The results demonstrate that the groups differ significantly in sociodemographic characteristics, driving experience, and travel characteristics. For self-reported perceived risk, the respondents’ perceptions of road surface conditions, the potential of daydreaming while operating a vehicle, and distraction from passengers or riding companions exhibited significant differences between the groups. The research findings could be beneficial as a guide for policymakers in planning road safety awareness to reduce risk in mixed traffic environments.

Enhancing road safety with the infrastructure-adaptable NDBA 2.0 concrete median barrier: An Italian experience

Road safety is a crucial global concern because of the high number of fatalities and injuries resulting from road crashes each year. Median crossover collisions are among the most dangerous crashes that happen on highways, frequently leading to serious or fatal injuries. The main approach to decreasing the occurrence of these types of crashes is the installation of median barriers. When the need for such installations arises, road agencies must choose from various options, including concrete barriers, cable barriers, or metal-beam guardrails. This paper is dedicated to the New Dynamic Barrier for Highways (NDBA 2.0), an innovative technology for median barriers developed by the Italian National Road Agency (ANAS), emphasizing its pivotal role in enhancing road safety. It incorporates high-tensile steel and advanced composites, offering robust protection while maintaining a lightweight profile. What distinguishes the NDBA 2.0 is its dynamic nature, featuring an intelligent system that seamlessly adapts to the road infrastructure. Its modular construction, with sections of only 200 cm, allows for easy installation and ensures compatibility across successive road segments. This adaptability reduces construction time while maintaining the highest standards of performance. From a road safety perspective, the NDBA 2.0 offers substantial advantages. Its design contributes to minimizing crash-related costs by reducing the severity of crashes, particularly in the transition zones. The barrier's design allows it to adapt to varying road conditions and traffic volumes, effectively addressing common installation challenges on existing roadways as well. Its ability to be directly supported on the road surface wear layer eliminates the need for costly foundation structures, facilitating quick installation and reducing maintenance expenses. The NDBA 2.0 barrier was designed to eliminate the need for future simulations in the design and verification of transitions between different barriers. For this reason, the NDBA 2.0 barrier has been tested in real-world conditions in class H4 and, consequently, is equipped with CE marking. This study offers a comprehensive analysis of the NDBA 2.0 barrier, whose implementation may provide significant benefits for road safety. Continued research, collaboration, and widespread adoption of the NDBA 2.0 barrier can further enhance road safety on a global scale.

КЕРАМИКАЛЫҚ ЖОЛ ТӨСЕНІШТЕРДІ ӨНДІРУДЕГІ КЕРАМИКАЛЫҚ МАССА КОМПОЗИЦИЯСЫН ЖЕТІЛДІРУ

The article presents the results of a study of the chemical and mineralogical composition of the raw material components in the ceramic mass and provides techniques for the technology of laying ceramic material by vibropressing using talc rock in the mass and methods for determining the composition of clay raw materials. Formulations for the production of ceramic road surfaces, taking into account the factors of preference for mixtures to improve the properties of the finished product as a molding, drying and ceramic material, have been studied in two different components. It was found that the introduction of talc into the ceramic composition has an effect on the formation of high-temperature augite and amphibole phases and the intensification of the formation of minerals in clay, on the formation of high-temperature phases - sanidine, ackermanite elements. This process leads to an increase in the physical and mechanical properties of the resulting samples.The main patterns of formation of the structure and phase of ceramic compositions by firing in the temperature range 1000оC-1100оC were studied by isothermal control.In this pattern, sintering processes with solid and solid liquid-phase syntheses were carried out to ensure the phase - mineral composition, the study clarified the production of high-strength and frost-resistant ceramic pavement. In order to be used in the improvement of the city territory (sidewalks, alleys, park areas, playgrounds, etc.), the possibility of obtaining ceramic road surfaces that meet environmental and operational requirements has been proven. It has been established that one of the priority properties of ceramic road surfaces is a significant abundance of their porosity (25-30%), which allows you to quickly absorb moisture from precipitation (rain, sleet, etc.) and filter water through the body into the ground.Such properties of ceramic paving stones prevent the accumulation of moisture on the surface of the roadway and create comfortable conditions during pedestrian movement, reducing the likelihood of ice formation on the surface of the paving stones in the cold season.

Automated road surface diagnostic system with image complexing

Automated road surface diagnostic system with image complexing

Analysis of the mechanical behavior of asphalt pavement under multiple coupling effects

To reveal the damage mechanism of asphalt pavement caused by the spatial rotation of the stress principal axis, and the influence range of excess pore water pressure on the pavement under the coupling action of multiple fields, the finite element software was used to build the three-dimensional highway asphalt pavement models. Under the consideration of gravity's impact on dynamic computation results, the study investigated the variation patterns of the direction cosines of the principal stress axes of asphalt structural pavement elements under the action of moving loads, as well as the distribution laws of excess pore water pressure. The results indicate that the influence of gravity on dynamic computation results increases gradually with the depth of the pavement, reaching an error of first principal stress of 40.1 % at the bottom of the lower layer. During the movement of loads, the pavement elements directly under the load undergo rotation of the principal stress axes in the xy, xz, and yz planes under different physical fields. With increasing pavement depth, the angle between the first principal stress and the z-axis primarily fluctuates between −90° to 0° and 90° to 180°. The cosine of the angle between the first principal stress and the x-axis and z-axis undergoes instantaneous positive and negative conversion, which can easily lead to transverse and longitudinal cracks on the road surface. The influence widths of excess pore water pressure along the longitudinal and transverse directions of the pavement increase with the pavement depth, with maximum widths of 5.426 m and 2.075 m, respectively. These findings offer new insights into the mechanisms behind the formation of transverse and longitudinal cracks on asphalt pavement and hold significant implications for the improvement of asphalt design methods.

Expanding the Accessible Forest Areas by Improving Forest Road Standards and Utilizing Mobile Fire-fighting Teams

In Turkey, most of the roads (66%) in forests consist of Type-B secondary forest roads with limited technical standards. The lack of technical standards used on these roads and the lack of road structures and surface material limit the fire truck’s speed and increase the travel time of the firefighting team. Improving forest road standards will contribute to driving safety and increasing the design speed, thereby expanding the forest areas that can be reached within the critical response period, reducing possible wood raw material losses. There is no study in the national and international literature investigating the contribution of forest road standards improvement to firefighting activities and the effects on possible wood raw material losses due to forest fires. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the effects of improving forest road standards on expanding accessible forest areas within the critical response time, especially in forests with high fire risk, and thus reducing potential wood raw material losses. Antalya Forestry Regional Directorate, where forest fires are seen most frequently and the amount of burned area is the highest in Turkey, was selected as the study area as one of the forest regional directorates where forest fires are seen most frequently and the amount of burned area is the highest in Turkey. In the solution process, primarily the forest areas that can be reached by the firefighting team (including mobile teams used in emergencies) within the critical response time were determined by considering the existing road network in the study area. Then, the possible increase in the accessible forest areas was investigated when the road standards are improved. Within the scope of the study, the impact of mobile teams used in emergency situations on forest areas reached during the critical response period was also evaluated. According to the results, in the scenario where current road standards and stationary teams were evaluated, it was determined that only 59.54% of the forest areas could be reached by initial response teams during the critical response time, and if road standards were improved, this rate increased to 71.69%. On the other hand, in the scenario where current road standards and stationary and mobile teams were evaluated together, it was determined that 70.40% of the forest areas could be reached by initial response teams during the critical response time, and if road standards were improved, this rate increased to 78.17%. The results obtained have shown that improvements in road standards and the presence of mobile teams have a very effective role in combating forest fires.

Fracture properties of asphalt mixtures containing high content of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and eco-friendly PET additive at low temperature

Low-temperature cracking is one of the main types of distress that affects asphalt pavement performance over its service life. At the same time, the accumulation of plastics, especially polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and the potentially harmful effects of these plastics requires special attention in order to find ways to reduce them. Previous studies have paid less attention to the impact of PET on low-temperature cracking in asphalt mixtures and the simultaneous interaction between PET and reclaimed asphalt pavement materials (RAP) on fracture behavior of asphalt mixture. In this study, a value-added substance called PET Additive (PA), which is extracted from chemical processing of PET was blended with asphalt binder at different dosages (1–3 %) to use in the mixture of hot mix asphalt (HMA). Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) was also added to the HMA mixtures at rates of 25 and 50 % by aggregate mass and the resulting asphalt mixtures were tested to characterize the load carrying ability and cracking resistance indexes of the modified HMA mixtures. Circular shaped test specimens with different mixture types and different geometries were manufactured. Results showed that the asphalt mixture containing PA has better performance than the control mixture; among all mixture types, a mixture containing 2 % PA and 25 % RAP had the better fracture resistance at low temperatures. Finally, the results demonstrate that the fracture behavior in Edge Notch Disc Bend (ENDB) and Semi-Circular Bend (SCB) specimens had similar trends.

Road surface semantic segmentation for autonomous driving

Although semantic segmentation is widely employed in autonomous driving, its performance in segmenting road surfaces falls short in complex traffic environments. This study proposes a frequency-based semantic segmentation with a transformer (FSSFormer) based on the sensitivity of semantic segmentation to frequency information. Specifically, we propose a weight-sharing factorized attention to select important frequency features that can improve the segmentation performance of overlapping targets. Moreover, to address boundary information loss, we used a cross-attention method combining spatial and frequency features to obtain further detailed pixel information. To improve the segmentation accuracy in complex road scenarios, we adopted a parallel-gated feedforward network segmentation method to encode the position information. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the mIoU of FSSFormer increased by 2% compared with existing segmentation methods on the Cityscapes dataset.

An Investigation of Globe Temperature in Street Canyons: A Scaled Model Study Implementing Cool Materials

The measurement of globe temperature (GT) is essential for investigating pedestrian thermal comfort in street canyons. The globe thermometer is the most common instrument used to measure GT; however, its application in scale models has not been thoroughly investigated to date. Therefore, this study explicitly investigates globe thermometer measurements in scale models and analyzes the need for customization of the globe thermometer for more reliable measurements. Scaling down with respect to the size of the globe thermometer and the effect of solar orientation/envelope materials are investigated in this study. The initial experiments were carried out in an outdoor setting using a typical street canyon model (scale 1:100) with an east-west street orientation. The results of the experiment are presented to compare a low solar reflectance street canyon (albedo of 0.4) and a high solar reflectance canyon (albedo of 0.6) in terms of surface temperatures, heat flux, and globe temperature. It is observed that although the wall and road surface temperatures are lower for the high solar reflectance canyon compared to those for the low solar reflectance canyon, the GT (measured at pedestrian height) is higher in a high reflectance canyon during the daytime, which could be due to the combined effect of direct radiation and short-wave reflection. However, for the hours after sunset, a reverse effect is observed, i.e., the GT becomes lower (up to 0.8 °C) in the case of a high reflectance canyon compared to that for the low reflectance canyon. Furthermore, the study emphasizes the impact of solar reflectance of canyon surfaces on GT values, due to the view factors that the globe thermometer on those surfaces.