Lean Rehabilitation

Germany is criss-crossed by around 830 000 kilometers¹ of roads – and year after year, billions are paid out to rehabilitate the dilapidated sections. Germany’s roads are afflicted by growing traffic volumes, increased heavy goods traffic and climatic conditions. The result is cracks, uneven surfaces, crumbling and potholes. It's high time for extensive rehabilitation work.

But Rehabilitation Comes at a Price

Where there is serious road damage, the asphalt surface course, binder and base course are usually stripped off and transported away in trucks. After that, a completely new road surface has to be constructed. This process costs a lot of time and money, uses vast amounts of resources and typically requires a large number of trucks and complex transport logistics. And last, but not least, road rehabilitation often causes long delays and traffic disruption.

An innovative soil stabilization method was used to repair a 500-meter long access road at the Burghausen site. What is special about this is that ETONIS^® 1400 S polymer dispersion allowed the existing surface course to be recycled and used as a base course for a new asphalt surface course, which was thinner than the one it replaced. The result is impressive!

A New Splendor Step by Step

First of all, a thin layer of the damaged asphalt surface was removed. The remaining asphalt was then broken up, granulated and mixed directly on site with frost blanket gravel to form a homogeneous mixture. A predetermined quantity of cement was then applied with a spreader. The next step was to use a specialized machine called a mix paver to work the cement and a mixture of water and ETONIS^® 1400 S evenly into the milled road surface and to compact it. Then the subgrade was ready for the new, thin asphalt surface course.

Watch our video to see the whole process :

A Promising Method

Soil stabilization with ETONIS^® 1400 S polymer dispersion has many benefits: the method saves time, money and resources as most of the existing material can be recycled. But what about durability? In the next few years, the new road will be put through its paces with site traffic and heavy goods vehicles. But one thing is certain: using polymer dispersion in the soil stabilizer has a clear advantage over conventional methods that only use cement as a binder.

No Fear of New Cracks

Cement as a binder produces a rugged base course of high compressive strength. However, it is brittle and tends to crack. High loads generated by heavy goods traffic, for example, can cause the cement to break and micro-cracks to form. In contrast, polymeric binders form flexible bridges between the cement crystals, so that they can withstand high loads. The ETONIS^® 1400 S renders the subgrade flexible, enabling it to cushion the loads acting on it. Not only that, but the vinyl acetate-ethylene-based polymer has crack-bridging properties as well. These gives the road surface more flexibility and greater stability over the long term, compared with conventional systems.

¹_{Source: Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV)}