Adding cooking oil to asphalt to create self-healing roads

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/transport/article/pothole-roads-cooking-oil-27vnf27bg

by zdw • 1 year ago

19 22 1 year ago

thetimes.com

tocs3• 1 year ago

Always a little amazed at the broad range of topics that are studied in such detail.

The article refers to Dr Jose Norambuena-Contreras.Here is a link with some of his publications.

https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/j.norambuena/#publications=i...

neonate• 1 year ago

https://archive.md/pif2I

antithesis-nl• 1 year ago

Previous discussion of another write-up on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42945013

gcanyon2• 1 year ago

"They estimate it could prolong the lifespan of roads by 30 per cent."

In my book that barely qualifies as "self-healing." It's a useful addition, and if it's cost-effective it's worth doing, but self-healing (again, to me) implies more than the technical fact of what happens at the micro-level: it implies a technique that maintains the road indefinitely, or at least...2x? 30 percent sounds more like "more durable due to resistance to micro-cracks".

metalman• 1 year ago

we live in a world of unhinged superlatives, its a lost cause trying to be exact, anywhere outside of actual engineering,and I bet you would eat MY socks, to get a look at something that could plausably increase YOUR self healing, definitions and terms be damned,right,:) 30% is a massive and if true, unprecidented increase in life span for a road surfacing material, and would have profound positive impacts on not just civil engineering, but knock on benifts, for ecological and climate issues

gcanyon2• 1 year ago

Totally agreed, 30% would be an awesome improvement if true and cost effective, I'm just grousing about the term "self-healing".

illusive4080• 1 year ago

You have to factor in the additional cost of these micro capsules: How hard is it to mix those in on site? What’s the cost to produce them? How fragile are they to work with? Do they hold up in real world conditions?

Traditional methods of resealing roads are effective when done at the right time. It takes proactive maintenance.

Until this is actually tried in the field in real world conditions I’m not holding my breath for this as a successful method.

nmeofthestate• 1 year ago

Well, humans are self-healing, but not immortal. 30% increased road lifespan from improved self-repair is quite impressive.

dinkblam• 1 year ago

if you think our self-healing capacity only increases our lifespan by 30% you are far off...

tomaytotomato• 1 year ago

I was working on project to provide telematics data to local councils from a well known UK car manufacturer.

We could detect pot holes, and poor traction areas of roads through ABS and other sensors on the car. From this we could generate a heatmap of bad areas with potholes.

The idea was good but I think the councils it was shown to weren't interested, it was a sort of shrug we won't fix them anyways. So why pay money for information we won't act upon.

Random tangent - here is a video of Arnold Schwarzenegger fixing a pothole (properly/improperly) in his neighbourhood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPqUtKQaJFk

mschuster912• 1 year ago

Random tangent - here is a video of Arnold Schwarzenegger fixing a pothole (properly/improperly) in his neighbourhood

Coming from a bit of construction history, it isn't bad work per se (they did use sand on top and a straightening tool), but it isn't up to (German) code either - no compactor in sight and no seam adhesive either. The pothole will re-open rather sooner than later.

batushka5• 1 year ago

Frost free zone, they can enjoy unsealed edges.

steve_gh• 1 year ago

Not so much that they won't fix them - they don't have the money to fix them

aurizon• 1 year ago

There are vegetable oils and mineral oils. Some vegetable oils have double bonds(called drying oils - linseed is one and with added catalysts(dryers) makes the furniture varnish we know) drying oils in roads - the drying aspect hardens the road, like slow-slow cured cement - at the cost of brittleness = a tradeoff. So the correct formula of mineral oil/vegetable oil/drying oil = max endurance. vegetable oil = 5-10x the $$ of mineral oils mixes(asphalts). Asphalt is the solid residue of oil fractionation is decanted into 45 gallon drums for trade(but is also bulk shipped in heated tanks , or = tank shaped lump. MacAdam created macadamised roads = a graded mixture of crushed rock from dust to ~.5 inch with the calculated minimum void space. Void space uses up asphalt, so minimum voids. Minimum voids + asphalt = strongest tarmac = well studied. Hot roads = higher melt asphalt needed - or sticky roads.

Adding cooking oil to asphalt to create self-healing roads

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