Florida Freeway Exams Excessive-Tech Concrete Highway

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Truckers passing greater than 4 miles of sunshine grey concrete northbound on U.S. Route 301 close to Jacksonville, Fla., are taking part in a key position within the first high-tech concrete experiment within the southeastern United States.

U.S. 301 was chosen for its excessive quantity of vans and lack of crossroads and companies via the hall, which scale back site visitors sample variations via the check space, situated east of Jacksonville, particularly simply south of County Highway 218 to only north of Richard Mosely Highway.

The $27 million undertaking, testing concrete pavement and base design, is being performed and funded by the Florida Division of Transportation, Michael Williams, deputy communications director at FDOT, advised Transport Matters.

FDOT engineers are in a position to monitor pavement circumstances in real-time below reside site visitors, together with heavy vans.

“The pavement has embedded pressure gauges and thermocouples to measure pavement response to load and temperature constantly,” Williams stated.

He added that the highway will likely be evaluated “twice a yr with a number of items of kit to measure the pavement smoothness, quantity of cracking, friction resistance and texture of the pavement floor, pavement profile, noise generated from the pavement and stiffness of the completely different pavement layers.”

FDOT, which is able to proceed engaged on the asphalt portion of the undertaking for the remainder of the yr, is utilizing all kinds of refined scientific applied sciences.

“Moisture probes have been put in on the undertaking to find out the water stage. Edge drain sensors have been put in on some sections to find out the quantity of water being drained and the size of performance of the sting drains,” Williams stated.

FDOT Secretary Jared Perdue, in a March 14 announcement of the undertaking, said, “Utilizing modern applied sciences to gather actual time knowledge on the efficacy of varied forms of concrete out there to make use of on Florida’s roads permits us to make use of the simplest supplies to create resilient transportation corridors and dependable provide chains whereas prudently utilizing taxpayer {dollars}. The extra resilient the supplies we use, the longer they final, lowering our upkeep prices and building instances, limiting the congestion vacationers really feel in lively work zones.”

Howie Moseley, state supplies engineer at FDOT, defined that the concrete portion initially of the check space has expertise offering every day site visitors quantity measurements. “The overwhelming majority of the time, all of the site visitors on 301 going towards Jacksonville will be capable of drive proper over the concrete check highway,” he added.

FDOT is conducting a number of fundamental research on the check highway. A structural experiment is completely different pavement designs, together with various pavement thickness from 6 to 10 inches. As we speak, FDOT makes use of 4 inches of asphalt over a stabilized subgrade within the pavement.

Drivers on U.S. 301 in Clay County are taking part in an necessary position in making @MyFDOT’s roads higher all through the state. The brand new concrete “discipline laboratory” is the primary of its variety within the southeastern United States. Learn extra: https://t.co/eqnRKDirZw@MyFDOT_NEFL pic.twitter.com/4lKnda5EXR

— FLORIDA DOT (@MyFDOT) March 14, 2023

Engineers are additionally evaluating a number of several types of concrete pavement bases (together with a thinner 2-inch asphalt, completely different combos of lime rock and thicknesses of 2- and 4-inch lime rock).

“The objective is to find out probably the most optimum technique to design a concrete pavement, and we’ll use this data to refine our design procedures, our building specs and likewise our upkeep procedures for concrete pavements,” Moseley stated.