Chipseal
Encyclopedia
Chip seal is a pavement
Pavement (material)
Road surface or pavement is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past cobblestones and granite setts were extensively used, but these surfaces have mostly been replaced by asphalt or concrete. Such...

 surface treatment that combines a layer(s) of asphalt
Asphalt
Asphalt or , also known as bitumen, is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits, it is a substance classed as a pitch...

 with a layer(s) of fine aggregate
Construction Aggregate
Construction aggregate, or simply "aggregate", is a broad category of coarse particulate material used in construction, including sand, gravel, crushed stone, slag, recycled concrete and geosynthetic aggregates. Aggregates are the most mined material in the world...

. In the United States, chip seals are typically used on rural roads carrying lower traffic volumes, and the process is often referred to as "asphaltic surface treatment". In Australia and New Zealand, chip sealing is referred to as a "sprayed seal" or "tarseal" and is used on a larger percentage of roads, both rural and urban.

Uses

Chip seal is cheaper than resurfacing an asphalt concrete
Asphalt concrete
Asphalt concrete is a composite material commonly used in construction projects such as road surfaces, airports and parking lots. It consists of asphalt and mineral aggregate mixed together, then laid down in layers and compacted...

 or a Portland Cement Concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...

 pavement, but not as long lasting. In some states of the United States, chip sealing is used in conjunction with new road construction to make the road bed more durable and longer lasting.

Installation

Chip seals are constructed by evenly distributing a thin base of hot bitumen or asphalt onto an existing pavement and then embedding finely graded aggregate into it. The aggregate is evenly distributed over the seal spray, then rolled into a smooth pavement surface. A chip seal surfaced pavement can optionally be sealed with a top layer which is referred to as a fog seal or enrichment.

The introduction of polymer-modified bitumen and emulsion binder has increased the chip seal's ability to prevent crack reflection and improve stone retention by improving the properties of the bitumen binder. Newer techniques use asphalt emulsion
Emulsion
An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally immiscible . Emulsions are part of a more general class of two-phase systems of matter called colloids. Although the terms colloid and emulsion are sometimes used interchangeably, emulsion is used when both the dispersed and the...

 (a mixture of liquid asphalt, surfactant
Surfactant
Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension of a liquid, the interfacial tension between two liquids, or that between a liquid and a solid...

, and water) instead of asphalt. This has been shown to help reduce aggregate loss and reduce cost of installation, but can increase the occurrence of stripping. It reduces emissions of volatile organic compound
Volatile organic compound
Volatile organic compounds are organic chemicals that have a high vapor pressure at ordinary, room-temperature conditions. Their high vapor pressure results from a low boiling point, which causes large numbers of molecules to evaporate or sublimate from the liquid or solid form of the compound and...

s (VOCs) due to the lower solvent content.

It can keep good pavement in good condition by sealing out water, but provides no structural strength and will only repair minor cracks. While the small stones used as surface yield a relatively even surface without the edges of patches, it also results in a very rough surface that leads to significantly louder rolling noises of automobile wheels.

Although chip seal is an effective low cost way to repair road, it has some drawbacks. Loose crushed stone is often left on the surface, due to under-application of bitumen or over application of stone. If not removed, this can cause safety and environmental problems such as cracked windshields, loss-of-control crashes (especially for motorcyclists, bicyclists and small trucks), and deposition of foreign material into drainage courses. Therefore, it is very important to sweep the road after the emulsion sets.

Asphalt (or bitumen as it is known outside the United States and Canada), is the actual binder used in chip seal applications.

Noise and vibration effects

The rough wearing surface of the chipseal generates more roadway noise at any operating speed than does typical asphalt or concrete surfaces. This typically is not a major concern at very low operating speeds, moreover, chipseals are typically used on low volume rural and urban roadways. These sound intensities increase with higher vehicle speeds. There is a considerable range in acoustical intensities produced depending upon the specific tire tread design and its interaction with the roadway surface type.

The rough surface causes noticeable increases in vibration and rolling resistance for bicyclists, and increased tire wear in all types of tires.

Vehicle speed can affect the set up time with chipseal. Shortly after construction (depending on weather conditions) the set speed for chip seal is 10-15 MPH for the first 24h-48h after construction.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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