Matthew Russotto wrote:
> In article >,
> Wayne Pein > wrote:
>
>>As far as I know, freeze-thaw damage only occurs when cracks are first
>>formed in the surface from heavy vehicle use and water enters these and
>>freezes.
>
>
> Freezing not only works from the surface, but from the soil beneath
> and around the road. Frost heaves can damage the surface themselves,
> and also cause cracking allowing further damage.
>
>
>>I've never seen heat buckling in my neck of the woods here in
>>NC, but I can't discount that it might happen elsewhere. I suspect that
>>it occurs when heavy vehicles operate on the hot surface and is not a
>>function of mere heat.
>
>
> You'd be wrong. Enough heat can force segments of concrete highways
> above neighboring ones.
>
>
>>by deterioration, which implies slow degregation. Any natural disaster
>>can destroy roads, but the culprit of deterioration is not age from just
>>sitting there but use from motor vehicles, and more precisely heavy ones.
>
>
> This is true on a road which is used by heavy vehicles, because that's
> the fastest method of deterioration from such roads. An unused
> Interstate-quality highway will last a good long time, because its
> base is too deep to allow vegetation to get a foothold, and it's
> well-drained (hopefully) and generally very thick. But eventually it
> will deteriorate. Lesser-quality roads will deteriorate much faster,
> particularly where freezes occur.


How about just plain crappy asphalt prepping and laying in too big a
hurry? I nice field in my area has turned into a thousand+ housing
development and they rushed the roads in and paved them with very little
prepping. Before the concrete was dry on the first few house foundations
some of the pavement was buckling up to 18" above the surrounding areas
by way of water pressure underground. It's California so it is a no
freeze zone. Some of the buckled areas were about ten feet in diameter
and they had to re-pave in a hurry since people from Silicon valley were
coming up and buying the houses just by looking at the floor plans and
two sample houses that had been built earlier (but just as shoddy). The
brand new buckled pavement would have been a dead give away how badly
the entire development was built. I never could get any information from
the workers, since not a one spoke English and I don't understand Spanish.
Maybe if it was a properly done county road it would have been better.
Bill Baka