Road Maintenance in America

In the United States, there are different types of roads which are differentiated by the law, these roads include: public roads and private roads. Both roads are made with different road surfaces. A road surface is the enduring top layer made on a place to withstand cars and people moving.

A road surface is usually built with strong materials that can endure the constant pressure by vehicles and people walking around most hours of the day. Different cities have a preference of road surface material that they use. For example, the material of choice in New York is asphalt, concrete in California, and chip seal in Bandera TX and most of the state.

Asphalt in New York

Asphalt, often referred to as flexible pavement because of its efficiency at dispersing the load of the vehicles that pass on it, has been used in New York for more than ninety years now. Asphalt is preferred in a lot of areas for roads because it can withstand a lot of pressure and does not deform easily. This resistance is mostly due to the bitumen binder that it contains. Most bitumen tops are laid on gravel bases, which are generally dense as the asphalt layers.

Asphalt is ideal for heavy traffic highways that have daily traffic of over 1300 vehicles per day. Warm mix are applied at 200-250-degree F, cold mix on rural roads that don’t have too much traffic, hot mix asphalt is usually applied at 300-degree F.

Merits of asphalts roads includes: limited noise, low cost of construction and maintenance. Disadvantages includes: low resistance compared to other paving method, and low tensile strength.

Concrete in California

There are three types of concrete surfaces which includes: jointed plain, constantly strengthened and connected strengthened. The single difference between these types of concretes is the system used in the joints used to regulate crack development. Additionally, continuous reinforced designs could be more expensive than jointed reinforced or jointed plain designs due to higher amount of steel.

An advantage of concrete roads is that, they are quite stronger and longer-lasting than asphalt roads while its disadvantages includes higher cost of construction and takes much time to construct.

Concrete roads are common in Michigan, Ohio and California.

Composite Pavement

When Portland cement and asphalt are combined, it is called a composite pavement. Most concrete roads fall apart after a long time and when that happens, asphalt can be used to create a new layer right on it. The old concrete is typically broken apart to show the lower concrete slabs and then covered by a fresh layer of asphalt to make a new road. This process is usually called rubblization.

Chip Seal in Texas

Chip seal is a road surface that has more than one layers of asphalt and one or more layers of fine aggregate combine. In the United States, chip seal is basically used for constructions of rural roads with limited traffic volumes. Example is Texas.

An advantage of chip seal is that is relatively cheaper than using an asphalt, concrete or Portland cement. The rough wearing surface of chip seal causes more roadway noise than an asphalt or concrete surface but is just as effective as a road surface.

Furthermore, chip seal is used in combination with new road construction to make the road durability to be strong and long-lasting.