Self Healing Aspalt on the A58

On this Blog we will give info on the test track with Self Healing Asphalt that is built on the A58 near Vlissingen in The Netherlands. The Asphalt is a special type of ZOAB (very porous aphalt concrete) containing small steelwool fibres. A known but serious problem with ZOAB is ravelling: stones at the surface coming off in time due to microcracking in the binder. The special ZOAB that is developed at Delft University (sponsored by AgentschapNL) can be heated with induction energy due to the fibres that are present which closes the microcracks and with that extends the service life of the road.

Friday 18 February 2011

Last day Alvaro at TU Delft

After 3 years working with great succes as a post-doc on the project Alvaro Garcia gave yesterday his final Seminar on the subject during the monthly Microlab-Colloquium. Now Alvaro will go for 1 month back to Spain. Not to rest after the hard work, but to walk for about 1000 km in Santiago de Compostela. After that he will continue his career at EMPA in Switzerland working on similar topics like material optimization and self healing of asphalt and concrete. We wish him all the best overthere, but we are sure we will stay in contact and will continue to have many discussion on our steelwool fibre asphalt.

RSAT plates under induction machine

The first RSAT plates from the road are tested this week at Brein (Heijmans) in Rosmalen and transfered to Delft to heat them with induction energy. In the picture below you see the laboratory setup for the heating with the induction machine and the infrared camera for measuring the temperature in the sample. In the small picture you see a screenshot of the computer showing the temerature in the sample. Next week we will do similar tests at SGS-Intron with the bigger version of the induction machine that will be used for the road.

Thursday 3 February 2011

Many applications of new asphalt

The new asphalt contains steelwool fibres. Magnets will stick to it. You can start thinking of many more applications. It can for instance hold buisiness cards or family pictures on your desk .....