Durable asphalt pavements for heavy duty roads. Research into the selection of the optimal road structure for heavy duty pavements. Part II: monitoring and optimization.

Asphalt pavements in the port environment are heavily loaded by and increased traffic volume in in size and number. The design requires a different approach for structural design and material selection.In 2017 - 2019, a first preliminary research was done that led to a literature search, improved asphalt mixtures, the development of the Fibre Bragg Grating technology in the asphalt construction and a vademecum for the design of heavily loaded roads in the port environment. A new traffic spectrum was defined and the ROAD_IT concept was included in specification tenders.In the current project, test sections on these 'promising technologies', are structurally designed using software, realized in the Antwerp port area and monitored during several years.The structural design of the test sections, based on 2 elastic and 1 viscoelastic multilayer programs, is aimed at designing a road using available sustainable technologies. The technology is e.g. an improvement of material in which excessive deformation or aging is prevented, higher recycling percentage is used and reinforcement in the asphalt and / or underlayers.The test sections also include the use of ROAD_IT technology. The infrared camera is used to control the processing temperature, a track and trace system for optimizing the construction process and archiving the history of the asphalt system. Fibre Brag Grating systems are implemented in the five test tracks. Based on FBG setups, visual inspections and additional measurements in situ (e.g. FWD), the sustainability of these innovations is reported with a view to a policy support advisory document (specification tender texts and underlying scientific evidence from literature or data from the test sections) for the construction of road structures with asphalt pavements in a port environment.Data from the test sections are used as input for the design of an asphalt deformation model.

Keywords:ROAD CONSTRUCTION SECTOR, SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGIES, ASPHALT

Disciplines:Construction materials technology, Construction mechanics, Infrastructure engineering and asset management