Sustainable Road Pavements for Harsh Canadian Climates

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Across the country, Canada has more than a million kilometers of paved roads. Although Canada has rich natural beauty and geography, it also has a unique and harsh climate. Since the country is significantly large, the climate varies between regions. Weather factors (e.g., rain, temperature, snow) with their differing magnitudes and patterns each have different types of impacts on the design, construction, maintenance and performance of pavement. These factors also contribute to the development of various pavement distresses, such as the creation of potholes, rutting, and slippery road surfaces. These distresses impact traffic safety, mobility and economic productivity. To mitigate these effects, road agencies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year for repairing and maintenance of their road pavements. This research program is designed to address some of the resurgent issues in asphalt pavement. Specifically, this research program consists of three research components: 1) Investigation of Moisture Induced Damages and Development of an Enhanced Moisture Damage Resistant Pavement: The goal of this research is to generate a thorough understanding of how ingressed water in pavements induces the stripping of asphalt from aggregate in all subsystems of an asphalt-aggregate mixture, and to evaluate and determine moisture repellent additives specific to harsh climates 2) Investigation of the Rutting Phenomenon and Development of an Improved Rut Resistant Paving Mixtures: This research component will investigate the unknown causes of rutting in a region where all the factors that are generally known from past research to cause rutting are absent or very minimal in magnitude. The effects of conventional mix design factors, the petrographic effects of aggregates, aggregate structural design, mastic fraction and binder's contribution will be studied 3) Investigation and Development of Self-Deicing Pavement for Sustainable Snow and Ice Control: The goal of this research component is to design a pavement mix with a sustainable anti-icing additive or technology that will reduce the total salt required for the winter maintenance, without compromising the pavement's functional and safety requirements. The findings from these steps will be used to develop an optimal asphalt mixture design with enhanced moisture repellent additives, rut resistant and salt encapsulated polymers. The proposed research program includes both fundamental and applied research. A total of six students will be trained. In this process, the team will develop new knowledge on these topics by understanding the complex behaviour of asphaltic materials, and will model how pavement performs under the harsh Canadian climate. The results expected from this program will contribute to the design of a long lasting pavement with lower maintenance costs that more effectively utilizes public money spent on infrastructure.