Their experience is impressive.
The German autobahn has long been synonymous with high quality, reliable and fast road. And it is understandable, who want to be, but still we build do not want. Though can.
The result is that each year shift the asphalt, and in Europe the same plot is without repair from 30 to 50 years.
I recently went to Germany and saw firsthand how repair Federal highway. You know, what’s the secret?
Translated from the German “autobahn” is the only “road for cars”. At the same time, this freeway system encircling the whole country. They really are reliable and safe, fact. We have a huge difference in approach and construction technologies. If to speak about the highways, i.e., highways, in the West they are more often made not of asphalt and concrete.
Now let’s see how to build famous highways on the example of the section of the highway A5 in the heart of Baden-Baden.
In the pictures the roadbed, put (most likely) before you were born or in early childhood. Many German roads are decades without intervention, near Berlin and preserved areas, built in the thirties.
But any plating will eventually require replacement. Came here thoroughly: there is no “patching” repair. Blocked part of the highway has reduced the flows (not forgetting the dividing curb, even with the temporary traffic pattern!), clean and tidy all fenced with posts, caused a temporary markup.
Touches how the Germans celebrate temporarily closed the motorway to the road sign.
Capital repairs of the road, in fact, means rebuild it. I saw the work on stage, when it has finished the strengthening of the soil and prepared the ground for installation. A team of workers working for 12 hours beginning at 5am. The day they pass from 700 to 1000 meters.
To tell about the technology of laying a road in a few sentences. Itself – superficial, without details and trade secrets. But in the process there is nothing fantastic.
Typical autobahn in Germany can be represented in the form of a “sandwich” which consists of frost-resistant base layer, a rubble-sand base 25 cm, reinforced with cement, coating of concrete with a thickness of 27 cm from the Top of the “sauce” to taste of the customer – finishing, for example, a layer of concrete with bare filler (German waschbeton) or diamond milling of the surface.
As the sandwich cooked? Prepared and groomed the basis of the spread of the textile substrate, a layer of geotextile. It is used to separate pavement layers and also performs a draining function according to the same “carpet” quietly driving to the dump with concrete.
The following pictures of the dowels that will be used as the male fittings for connecting adjacent plates.
Dump trucks bring materials, cement concrete mixture of the two varieties (upper and lower coating layer) with nearby mobile plant.
Before you start laying the first layer of the substrate water.
Brought a “hill”of material is spread across the width of the roadway. All makes the road technics, man only controls the process.
Samples of materials for base, “the bottom bread of the sandwich”.
So the whole part of the track looks like from above: three yellow cars crawling like caterpillars, one behind the other.
The first need to the bottom layer coating, the second for the device top layer. The third deals plenkoobrazovatelej protective means and gives the finished shape and texture.
Rail also serves as a drainage system arranged in the center of the road. Stretched along the road a string running rail.
In the process of laying the road involved a small number of worker: manual labor is practically not needed, the facility employed 15 people. In this photo they had just finished pin reinforcement, the laying of dowels in transverse joints.
Longitudinal joints may also be strengthened with anchors (photos, unfortunately, no). The anchors fix the position of plates in a vertical plane and distribute the load between adjacent slabs. The anchors are not allowed to disperse or to move the plates along the longitudinal seams.
On a similar technology in the world is now building the runways of airports.
How much does this way? According to the representative of the contractor, the entire renovation project, a 10-kilometer section of highway (three lanes plus the shoulder) at a cost of 20 million euros. That is, 1 km = 2 million euros.
In Europe, thanks to technology, the initial cost of construction of road concrete canvas is almost equal to the cost of laying the “classical” asphalt, because there often are built of concrete — consider their money for years to come.
A perfectly smooth coating lies like butter on bread. But most of all on the site impressed me is not innovation, and people. Machine has left not so a lot of hard work to monitor and verify. But you should have seen how lovingly and almost with tenderness (relative to the road) these hard working men doing their job. No sloppy movements, no hint of the hack. They build the road for themselves and their children, for their country. They then move on, why make bad? But here I have not discovered “America”, the Germans are known for this attitude.
Beautiful, isn’t it? Perhaps the reader is already suspicious and ready to write the review that in Germany and winter is not winter, and the ground, in colder regions even asphalt will not take, rejects his land, not that newfangled concrete! And here and there, the concrete can be better accustomed, if not to moonlight not to steal. One of the advantages of no deformation due to temperature changes and sacred “crossing zero”. In America, where in the southern States is very hot, and in the North is very cold, it is also long realized this, so there is 60% of all roads in the country with such a coating. So Hello fans of tales of a harsh climate.
Another tale, about concrete roads is that they are very noisy. This is old information, as modern methods of construction allowed to approach the noise level for asphalt pavements. But in terms of ecology and safety of this technology is much better, asphalt is made from oil, concrete – limestone. It does not emit toxic gases when heated and is suitable for recycling. Yet, the concrete reflects three times more light, and the couch will be comfortable.
To be objective, there are drawbacks. For example, after the passage of the paver, road is ready in 8 hours, and the concrete attains full strength only after several days. And if the base fell into disrepair, you need to change the whole plate, “patching” repair will not get off. At the same time, the chance that the road will be damaged, much less cover distributes the load to a wider area, trucks are less “kill” the road and do not create a rut.
When it’s finished, on the dividing strip will not forget to plant a lawn.
The next step — cutting of expansion joints. Do it immediately after finishing the coating laid.
Seams are cut in order to avoid cracking of the screed, which may cause destruction of the road.
The seams are sealed using rubber seals.
It looks like the repaired area of the track.
Later on it marked, retro-reflective and special noise stripes on the border with the road. Only after that will open the traffic for cars.
Who can safely ride on the road even at high speeds. Approximately 50% of German roads have only a recommended speed limit.
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