
The self-healing road - leojkent
http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/11275/the-self-healing-road/
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jandy
That's pretty cool, but "self healing" is a bit misleading.

It's not very self healing when it requires somebody to drive along with a
vehicle that would heat up the road to fix it. That's like saying all current
roads are self-healing because they just require someone to drive along and
fill in the holes.

Still cool though, easier to repair roads are always good.

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hakaaaaak
Maybe they should call it a "more durable road".

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Cthulhu_
It's not more durable, it's easier to patch up. Simply said, this technique
allows maintenance workers to heat the bitumen up uniformly, allowing it to
flow and fix its own small cracks and brittleness, and avoiding larger damages
over time.

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ctdonath
Given that roads are built as a permanent structure which isn't permanent,
thus terribly hard to replace...

I've wondered about building roads featuring self-leveling snap-in sections.
Dispersed energy from traffic could be captured to operate its active self-
leveling and status-reporting functions. When a section breaks - which like
any road it will - a crew is notified, brings out a new section, pops out the
old, installs the new within a few minutes, and moves on. No more long-term
breakdowns, huge effort ripping out old road, long period rebuilding a
replacement - all due to building asphalt/concrete roads as permanent
structures which aren't.

Yes, up front costs are higher, but we've been building roads long enough to
know there are substantial long term maintenance and replacement costs.

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ImprovedSilence
I don't know a lot about road building, but I always thought that is the point
of jointed concrete roads.

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sp332
Sure, and I've seen sidewalks made the same way, but you can't use concrete in
the "salt belt" [0] because salt causes ridiculous amounts of pitting in
concrete roads.

[0] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Belt>

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ImprovedSilence
Hm, what do states that get snow, but don't use salt do? Like CO for instance?

Also, I'm from PA, and pa/nj/ny are probably where i've seen the most concrete
roads? (maybe that's why PA roads are so shitty compared to MD/VA?, besides
the fact that they re-pave their roads every 2 years....)

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sp332
Hm, [http://www.pothole.info/2011/03/how-road-salt-leads-to-
rough...](http://www.pothole.info/2011/03/how-road-salt-leads-to-rough-
pavement-sometimes/) and other sources I just Googled seem to agree that salt
only affects concrete in certain situations. I guess there's some other reason
we don't have concrete roads up in New Hampshire...

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speeder
Too bad this would be useless here in Brazil, in fact MORE useless...

Here I've seen many times asphalt with objects embedded on it (usually bottle
caps), because many places in Brazil get hot enough to asphalt partially melt,
this technology here would be REALLY self-healing.

The problem is, asphalt that is very cheap to fix, and more durable, or
cheaper in long term, is not interesting, because it means less money to
steal, in Brazil everyone knows that the purpose of roads is steal public
money, not to use, this is why every road or is full of holes, or full of
patches.

Typical brazillian road:
<http://postagemteste.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/03.jpg>

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batiste
Very smart. The cost of maintaining roads in cold countries is crazy. This
technique should bring substantial savings. Or an incentive to have better
roads as it's cheaper to maintain.

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oneandoneis2
Interesting, but I was more impressed by the Solar Roadway idea, personally..
( <http://www.solarroadways.com/> )

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anonymousDan
Wow that is a really interesting concept. I particularly like the way it could
be deployed incrementally. I'd still have concerns over the durability of the
road (especially electronoic components). Theft might be an issue too.

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eumenides1
How long does the induction truck (I'm calling it a road zamboni) take to heal
the surface?

Is summer enough to auto heal?

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transfire
It's been invented before. But it will never take b/c road construction
companies do not want anything eating into their reoccurring revenue stream.
Why do you think our roads are getting worse and worse?

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nidx
The big problem with any additives is that asphalt is usually ripped up and
recycled. These processes usually make it harder or impossible to recycle.

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Millennium
How hot does the road have to get before the self-healing process kicks in?
Would warmer climates even need the induction machine?

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sp332
Could they use a cheaper material than steel?

