Memories of holes in roads

Nowadays our world is based on transport so most people know the feeling that driving in bad roads is pain. Then all concentration is directed to think how to go around holes without damaging car and still moving quicker than snails. This is a problem not only for us. For road service companies it is difficult to find every crack in the road and fix it immediately. Another problem is that price of asphalt is very high as huge amounts are necessary. There is a solution to find material which could withstand loads of different critical conditions like freezing winter, hot summer and heavy trucks. Zhanping You from Michigan Technological University suggested to mix some nanoclay into asphalt, tried this technology and it worked! Nanoclay addition of around 3% by weight to asphalt changed its viscosity to the better side. This improvement won't let to deform asphalt as easily as before and rutting won't appear that often. Less maintenance means saving a lot of money and making roads safer. There still are loads to test, loads to do as characteristics of new asphalt under different temperatures are unknown. Zhanping You and his team are also inspecting asphalt characteristics containing other nano mixtures. Hopefully they will succeed to create material which could stay without any maintenance for more than 20 years. Such roads would be another step to a safer driving. In addition we wouldn't need to worry about holes appearing in the road from nowhere so all our attention would be concentrated on signs, other cars and pedestrians. Better roads, better tomorrow!

More details can be found in: http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/may/story67607.html