0000000000983867
AUTHOR
G. Di Mino
AllBack2Pave: Towards a sustainable recycling of asphalt in wearing courses
Nowadays, asphalt plant technologies allow producing asphalt mixtures incorporating up to 100% reclaimed asphalt. Unfortunately policies are still behind technology and in order to suggest guidelines for a widespread use for surface courses, road managers feel the need of having a deeper understanding of optimised design strategies, information related to the handling in asphalt plants and on the performance of these mixes. This paper provides the summary of the main results and the details of the main idea behind “AllBack2Pave 2013–2015” a two-years, 500 K€ project funded by the CEDR Transnational Road Research project that evaluated the feasibility of going towards 100% recycling of aspha…
A Dynamic Model of Ballasted Rail Track with Bituminous Sub-Ballast Layer
AbstractThe bituminous sub-ballast layer within the ballasted rail track allows some mechanical and environmental advantages. An analytical model of a ballasted rail track with sub-ballast layer has been proposed by considering the rail as viscous-elastic continuous beam discretely supported, at four levels of elasticity.The model was used to compare the mechanical performance of both ballasted track with and without bituminous sub-ballast layer. The results confirmed that the bituminous sub-ballast layer reduces the dynamic forces on the ground and achieves the technical objectives as reduction of ground borne vibrations and increase of the design life of the rail track.
The vibrational phenomena generated by the transit of the railway carriers Finite Element Model (FEM) analysis of the superstructure- ground system by configuration in cuts
L'aumentata domanda di trasporto su ferro in ambito urbano ha posto alcune problematiche di inserimento ambientale; infatti le azionidinamiche generatesi al contatto ruota-rotaia sitrasmettonosotto forma di onde vibrazionali attraverso la sovrastruttuira al terreno e da questo alle strutture circostanti
Effect of temperature and traffic on mix-design of bituminous asphalt for railway sub-ballast layer
A wide integrated research has been carried out to assess the suitability of bituminous mixtures as the sub-ballast layer in railways. The influence of temperature on the mechanical characteristics and thermal susceptibility of the bituminous conglomerate—which forms sub-ballast layer of railway lines—has provided the motivation for carrying out a measurement of the thermal cycles in this layer. The evaluation of the average seasonal temperatures has proven to be well interpolated by sinusoidal functions, of which characteristic parameters are determined. To expand the validity of the study in different weather situations apart from Sicily, where the experiment was held, we proceeded to app…
Fatigue resistance: is it possible having a unique response?
The mechanical characterisation of the asphalt concrete in terms of both the fatigue resistance and the stiffness modulus is necessary to use any design method of the flexible road pavements. Different kinds of test are usually used in experimental work such as bending tests, uniaxial tests, etc., but sometimes they do not give the same answer. In this paper mechanical characterization was carried out by means of fatigue tests undertaken with two most used testing machines for asphalt material: two point bending (2PB) test at IFSTTAR in Nantes (France) and four point bending (4PB) test at University of Palermo, in Palermo (Italy). Different strain controlled tests were undertaken for the sa…
Estimation of durability of new surface courses using accelerated load test and expert's opinions
There is an increasing interest among road authorities in studying sustainability assessment of road infrastructure. The durability of the surface course is a critical factor in these calculations and must be carefully considered in the analysis. New types of asphalt mixes with the potential to improve the results in the sustainability assessment have no proven track record and are thus more likely not to be used until solid performance data is available. To bridge the gap and diminish the uncertainty about the durability of Green asphalt mixes for surface courses, a combination of laboratory tests and tests in a circular road simulator were performed. Eight mixes were tested in total, four…
Mechanical characterization of dry asphalt rubber concrete for base layers by means of the four bending points tests
The mechanical characterisation of the asphalt concrete in terms of both the fatigue resistance and the stiffness modulus is necessary to use any design method of the flexible road pavements. Even more the determination of these mechanical properties is necessary if the asphalt concrete investigated is an innovative material as a dry asphalt rubber concrete DARC (i.e. a bituminous mixture with rubber via dry process). Such material is less known and investigated than the asphalt rubber concrete via wet process, even if its application implies peculiar economical and environmental advantages such as no specialized equipment or significant plant modifications and large quantity of recycled wa…
Towards more sustainable airfield pavements using life-cycle assessment of design alternatives
Airports are critical infrastructures and their success is paramount to development through tourism, trade and connectivity. Within the airport, the runway pavement must always be in a pristine condition. Consequently, pavement design and maintenance decisions are vital. Authorities must make decisions concerning preferred materials for design and maintenance. Decisions should be balanced by both economic and environmental factors. This paper considers a case study at Falcone Borsellino Airport (PMO), Palermo, Italy, where air traffic has been steadily increasing. Different pavements are proposed: flexible Asphaltic concrete designs with both traditional Asphaltic concrete and using reclaim…
Photogrammetric UAV technologies aimed at monitoring of infrastructures
The research has three key concept: the first one is the application of data analysis using limited data sets to understand historical and future road maintenance interventions; the second one is the application of image based 3D modelling and analysis of pavement distresses; the third one is the application of deep learning to detect and pinpoint pavement distresses
Evaluation of dry asphalt rubber concrete in railway sub-ballast using the four point bending test
The study of bituminous mixes can be related to tyre rubber material recycling. Encouraging scrap tyre disposal and cutting down on pit employment are the environmental aims. In the field of railways, technological processes involved in the use of crumb rubber are the wet-dry processes. In the mechanical characterisation of the asphalt concrete in terms of both the fatigue resista recycled waste tires nce and the stiffness modulus it is necessary to use a design method for the sub-ballast railway material, even more so if the asphalt concrete investigated is an innovative material such as a dry asphalt rubber concrete (DARC) (i.e. a bituminous mixture with crumb rubber formed by a dry proce…