Friday, July 6, 2018
What Do They Make Their Roads Of?
The British daily, The Sun, ran an article today claiming that it is so hot in Britain that "entire lorries are MELTING into the road." Sure enough, the article contains a photograph of a garbage truck sunk axle deep into a roadway, and the article indicates that the tarmac had melted. And then I saw another article of a man whose feet sunk into a street for the same reason. I was thinking to myself, "Wow! It must be some insane temperature like 130 degrees or more." But, no. The Sun article indicated that the temperatures were 33 C, which is only 91.4 F. It was 100 F when I drove home from work yesterday (which is pretty normal for this time of year), and I didn't see any trucks sunk in pavement. And it doesn't seem to be something plaguing Phoenix or Los Vegas which have even higher temperatures. So I have to ask: what do they use to make roads in England? Do they not use aggregate in their asphalt?
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Looking at the picture of the truck sunk into the asphalt, and looking at the hole once the truck was pulled out, it looks to me like there was some form of erosion (e.g. sink hole) under the asphalt surface that weakened the road surface. And, the picture of the man whose feet sunk into the street looks fake.
ReplyDeleteI live in a southern state that gets seriously hot (many over 100 F days) in the summer, and I've never seen asphalt that soft. Fresh asphalt may get a little soft in when it is hot, and shallow ruts may form at intersections where vehicles have to stop.
I looked at the photos again and you are correct. It'll teach me to trust a story from The Sun.
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