Noise pollution from roads is a major issue. Excessive noise exposure is linked to a host of health problems including heart disease and stroke. It's also a big reason for opposition to new roads. If we could fix this problem, we'd make the world much better.
Well, we can. It's called poroelastic asphalt (https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/6/2/18). It substitutes polyurethane for bitumen. This makes it possible to have larger voids in the asphalt's matrix. Most road noise is caused by air getting trapped in tire grooves, compressed, and then allowed to escape, making a "pop". By adding voids, it creates a channel for the air to escape. The result is a noise reduction of 10 decibels, or about half.
The pores also allow water to drain through, eliminating the problem of runoff. But engineers haven't been able to make it durable, but as you know, I have boundless faith in technology and science, and I'm sure eventually the highway noise problem will be fixed.
On surface roads, the car engine makes more noise than the road itself, and that's up to the car manufacturers (which is easy to do but they won't because they'll lose money).
Quote from: 1 on March 23, 2021, 08:38:07 PM
On surface roads, the car engine makes more noise than the road itself, and that's up to the car manufacturers (which is easy to do but they won't because they'll lose money).
Electric cars will eliminate that though. And it depends what you mean by surface roads. Above 20 mph, tire noise dominates. So parking lots and residential areas will be quieter (perhaps too quiet), but arterials will still be noisy.
Quote from: 1 on March 23, 2021, 08:38:07 PM
On surface roads, the car engine makes more noise than the road itself, and that's up to the car manufacturers (which is easy to do but they won't because they'll lose money).
You sure on that one? Years of being a pedestrian and cyclist really tell my ears otherwise. At least over 30 MPH (for the vehicles that is).
I'm sure that removing such a pervasive source of noise would have enormous effects on wildlife.
Did you ever drive on grooved pavement, with readily available air escape paths?
Quote from: kalvado on March 24, 2021, 08:23:11 AM
Did you ever drive on grooved pavement, with readily available air escape paths?
i-25 near me is groved concrete, and its pretty loud even with the grooves parallel to the direction of travel.
us-287 near me is grooved perpendicularly (is that a word?) and it has a 'whine' to it, the frequency of which is proportional to your speed.
Quote from: kernals12 on March 23, 2021, 05:23:09 PM
Noise pollution from roads is a major issue. Excessive noise exposure is linked to a host of health problems including heart disease and stroke. It's also a big reason for opposition to new roads. If we could fix this problem, we'd make the world much better.
Well, we can. It's called poroelastic asphalt (https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/6/2/18). It involves adding rubber and voids to the surface. Most road noise is caused by air getting trapped in tire grooves, compressed, and then allowed to escape, making a "pop". By adding voids, it creates a channel for the air to escape. The result is a noise reduction of 10 decibels, or about half.
The pores also allow water to drain through, eliminating the problem of runoff. But engineers haven't been able to make it durable, but as you know, I have boundless faith in technology and science, and I'm sure eventually the highway noise problem will be fixed.
If 10 dBs would be a reduction of about half, then you're going from faint to faint. Being the general threshold of a hearing problem due to noise is about 75 decibels or so, this is a non-issue, and it's likely no one is suffering a stroke or heart attack due to a 20 dB noise level.
https://boomspeaker.com/noise-level-chart-db-level-chart/
https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/backgrounders/noise-on-earth-and-on-international-space-station
Quote from: jeffandnicole on March 24, 2021, 09:45:53 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on March 23, 2021, 05:23:09 PM
Noise pollution from roads is a major issue. Excessive noise exposure is linked to a host of health problems including heart disease and stroke. It's also a big reason for opposition to new roads. If we could fix this problem, we'd make the world much better.
Well, we can. It's called poroelastic asphalt (https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6412/6/2/18). It involves adding rubber and voids to the surface. Most road noise is caused by air getting trapped in tire grooves, compressed, and then allowed to escape, making a "pop". By adding voids, it creates a channel for the air to escape. The result is a noise reduction of 10 decibels, or about half.
The pores also allow water to drain through, eliminating the problem of runoff. But engineers haven't been able to make it durable, but as you know, I have boundless faith in technology and science, and I'm sure eventually the highway noise problem will be fixed.
If 10 dBs would be a reduction of about half, then you're going from faint to faint. Being the general threshold of a hearing problem due to noise is about 75 decibels or so, this is a non-issue, and it's likely no one is suffering a stroke or heart attack due to a 20 dB noise level.
https://boomspeaker.com/noise-level-chart-db-level-chart/
https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/backgrounders/noise-on-earth-and-on-international-space-station
Decibels are logarithmic, so a 3 dB decrease is half as loud, and a 10 dB decrease is 1/10 as loud, regardless of where on the scale you are. 0 dB is the threshold of human hearing (in the absence of other sounds), not no sound at all.
That being said, perceived volume doesn't change as much as actual volume; reducing by 10 dB will reduce what's
perceived by half instead of 90%. (70 dB doesn't sound 1,000 times as loud as 40 dB to you, right?)
And tires can also be designed to be quiet. Bridgestone's quiettrack (https://www.aaroads.com/www.wired.com/story/bridgestone-turanza-quiettrack-tire/amp) tires incorporate diagonal grooves to the tire's edges that allow air to escape.
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 10:14:33 AM
And tires can also be designed to be quiet. Bridgestone's quiettrack (https://www.aaroads.com/www.wired.com/story/bridgestone-turanza-quiettrack-tire/amp) tires incorporate diagonal grooves to the tire's edges that allow air to escape.
Tires are designed for many different types of weather and conditions. It's up to the consumer to figure out what's best for their general driving conditions.
A non-trivial consideration–and I don't pretend to know what the ideal solution for this is–involves the issue that some level of vehicle noise may be desirable on roads that have pedestrian crossings or nearby sidewalks. Blind and visually-impaired people have raised the concern that electric vehicles, as well as hybrids running in purely electric mode, can often be too quiet for people who rely on hearing to know they're coming. Obviously the idea of having those vehicles emit a beeping sound, similar to a reversing truck, is not a good solution for a variety of reasons (not the least of them being the undesirability of using a sound that might be confused with one that has a well-established meaning), but as those sorts of vehicles become more common, figuring out a solution to that issue will be important.
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 24, 2021, 12:07:54 PM
A non-trivial consideration–and I don't pretend to know what the ideal solution for this is–involves the issue that some level of vehicle noise may be desirable on roads that have pedestrian crossings or nearby sidewalks. Blind and visually-impaired people have raised the concern that electric vehicles, as well as hybrids running in purely electric mode, can often be too quiet for people who rely on hearing to know they're coming. Obviously the idea of having those vehicles emit a beeping sound, similar to a reversing truck, is not a good solution for a variety of reasons (not the least of them being the undesirability of using a sound that might be confused with one that has a well-established meaning), but as those sorts of vehicles become more common, figuring out a solution to that issue will be important.
Different animal. Tire noise should be a higher speed one, not really applicable for low-speed city streets, where engine noise dominates.
So... your solution is to create an environment in which blind pedestrians no longer have to even know if cars are coming? That might not work so well on a multi-lane 45mph arterial road. Heck, let's just cross now: all the cars will stop anyway!
Jay Doblin's levels of design (http://www.thoughtyoushouldseethis.com/post/21860352429/jay-doblins-seven-levels-of-design/amp) can guide us through solving this problem
Level 1: cars emit beeps to warn visually impaired pedestrians at low speeds
Level 2: Car bumpers are designed so that low speed crashes don't cause injuries
Level 3: cars are electronically linked to crosswalks and can provide a driver warning if pedestrians are in the way and even automatically apply the brakes
Level 4: Crosswalks are replaced by bridges and tunnels
Level 5: Blindness is cured by electronic ocular implants
Level 6: Helicopters replace cars, leaving the surface free for pedestrians
Level 7: Passenger Transportation is made obsolete by telecommunication
Level 0: Realize that tire noise isn't really that big a deal.
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:19:54 PM
So... your solution is to create an environment in which blind pedestrians no longer have to even know if cars are coming? That might not work so well on a multi-lane 45mph arterial road. Heck, let's just cross now: all the cars will stop anyway!
That's jaywalking and it's illegal. Someone who tried doing that would get fined
With respect to the grooving of highways, that's tining and there is so much science behind it: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/concrete/trailer/resources/hif18038.pdf
Transverse tining on concrete pavements was used from the late 1960s onward but that has generally shifted to longitudinal tining to reduce noise.
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:34:26 PM
Level 0: Realize that tire noise isn't really that big a deal.
Except it is a very big deal.
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 12:35:17 PM
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:19:54 PM
So... your solution is to create an environment in which blind pedestrians no longer have to even know if cars are coming? That might not work so well on a multi-lane 45mph arterial road. Heck, let's just cross now: all the cars will stop anyway!
That's jaywalking and it's illegal. Someone who tried doing that would get fined
Where does that happen? Certainly not around here, it doesn't! (Indeed a new law in Virginia this year makes it a secondary offense–a cop has to stop you for some other legitimate reason before he can ticket you for jaywalking.) Plus there are "unmarked crosswalk" laws to consider in most, if not all states, though the particularities of such laws will vary. In kphoger's example, the reference to a 45-mph speed limit would mean that here in Virginia there are no unmarked crosswalks on that road because our unmarked crosswalk law applies only to roads with 35-mph speed limits or lower. (I would also wager that 95% or more of both drivers and pedestrians have no idea what an unmarked crosswalk is.)
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 12:35:17 PM
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:19:54 PM
So... your solution is to create an environment in which blind pedestrians no longer have to even know if cars are coming? That might not work so well on a multi-lane 45mph arterial road. Heck, let's just cross now: all the cars will stop anyway!
That's jaywalking and it's illegal. Someone who tried doing that would get fined
It's not jaywalking and it's not illegal if it's done at a crosswalk.
Here is an example (https://goo.gl/maps/yvuhVSq4yx272JNNA) of an unmarked crosswalk extending across a four-lane 45mph arterial road in suburban Chicago. As long as a pedestrian does not "suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a moving vehicle which is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard [625 ILCS 5/11-1002(b)]", then it is perfectly legal to cross the street here with no requirement to yield to cross traffic.
Quote from: Illinois Vehicle Code – 625 ILCS 5/1-113
Sec. 1-113. Crosswalk.
(a) That part of a roadway at an intersection included within the connections of the lateral lines of the sidewalks on opposite sides of the highway measured from the curbs or, in the absence of curbs, from the edges of the traversable roadway, and in the absence of a sidewalk on one side of the highway, that part of the highway included within the extension of the lateral line of the existing sidewalk to the side of the highway without the sidewalk, with such extension forming a right angle to the centerline of the highway;
(b) Any portion of a roadway at an intersection or elsewhere distinctly indicated for pedestrian crossing by lines or other markings on the surface placed in accordance with the provisions in the Manual adopted by the Department of Transportation as authorized in Section 11-301.
Quote from: Illinois Vehicle Code – 625 ILCS 5/11-1002
Sec. 11-1002. Pedestrians' right-of-way at crosswalks.
(a) When traffic control signals are not in place or not in operation the driver of a vehicle shall stop and yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk when the pedestrian is upon the half of the roadway upon which the vehicle is traveling, or when the pedestrian is approaching so closely from the opposite half of the roadway as to be in danger.
If I were a blind pedestrian crossing the road here, I'd certainly want to be able to hear traffic and not simply assume that any cross traffic will automatically stop for me as I walk across 100 feet of pavement.
Besides which, a ticket can only be issued if there's a cop there to issue one.
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 12:38:20 PM
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:34:26 PM
Level 0: Realize that tire noise isn't really that big a deal.
Except it is a very big deal.
Except it isn't.
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:58:32 PM
Here is an example (https://goo.gl/maps/yvuhVSq4yx272JNNA) of an unmarked crosswalk extending across a four-lane 45mph arterial road in suburban Chicago.
I wouldn't call that an unmarked crosswalk. I'd just call it an intersection with no sidewalks, and therefore, no crosswalks.
Quote from: webny99 on March 24, 2021, 01:14:00 PM
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:58:32 PM
Here is an example (https://goo.gl/maps/yvuhVSq4yx272JNNA) of an unmarked crosswalk extending across a four-lane 45mph arterial road in suburban Chicago.
I wouldn't call that an unmarked crosswalk. I'd just call it an intersection with no sidewalks, and therefore, no crosswalks.
OK, perhaps that was a poor example.
Here's one with unmarked crosswalks (https://goo.gl/maps/W1v22WdTCuYw72TJ9) extending between sidewalks at a 50mph Butterfield Road. And
here's where the Illinois Prairie Path crosses the road (https://goo.gl/maps/uKK611Nmp2PA2D9k8) at an unmarked crosswalk nearby.
Combined with electric motors, rubber tires are already a deadly combination. One of my colleagues was working on a rubber-tired AGT system in Florida and the [dispatcher] mistakenly released a driverless test train into his workzone. Needless to say, he didn't hear it coming but fortunately was able to jump to safety in the nick of time (we say it the same way in Appalachia, but where I grew up it's still spelt "knick"). Low-noise pavement would be even worse. Passenger compartments can be constructed to be virtually free from penetration of outside noises (discussed in some other recent threads, with arguments against that as well).
Personally, I don't have a strong position on these types of issues. System Safety practices in my world require that all of these types of safety issues be identified and mitigated before we can accept a safety certification report. Usually, the cost of the improvement versus the cost of the safety mitigation solves the safety issue (in some cases, time is the driving cost factor).
All that being said, there is one environment that I've worked in where poroelastic asphalt and slotted tires might come in handy. Many hospital complexes are forced to build upwards instead of outwards, as the maximum trip time between medically-dependent facilities becomes too great for a typical large, sprawling campus. A small number of hospitals have turned to air-levitated systems with no wheels to solve the noise concerns. This would permit other rubber tire AGT technologies to compete, perhaps opening up another niche market. [Air-levitated AGT systems would likely see an economic benefit from additional competition, but my world is very hard to predict].
They're installing electronic alert systems at train crossings to replace noisy train horns. Why couldn't a similar idea work for crosswalks?
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 01:49:16 PM
They're installing electronic alert systems at train crossings to replace noisy train horns. Why couldn't a similar idea work for crosswalks?
How practical is that, especially for unmarked crosswalks?
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 24, 2021, 01:59:29 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 01:49:16 PM
They're installing electronic alert systems at train crossings to replace noisy train horns. Why couldn't a similar idea work for crosswalks?
How practical is that, especially for unmarked crosswalks?
With everything getting connected to the internet it would be very practical for signalized crosswalks. Vehicle to everything communication is nothing short of a revolution
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 02:16:45 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 24, 2021, 01:59:29 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 01:49:16 PM
They're installing electronic alert systems at train crossings to replace noisy train horns. Why couldn't a similar idea work for crosswalks?
How practical is that, especially for unmarked crosswalks?
With everything getting connected to the internet it would be very practical for signalized crosswalks. Vehicle to everything communication is nothing short of a revolution
How practical is that for unmarked crosswalks?
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 24, 2021, 02:27:43 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 02:16:45 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 24, 2021, 01:59:29 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 01:49:16 PM
They're installing electronic alert systems at train crossings to replace noisy train horns. Why couldn't a similar idea work for crosswalks?
How practical is that, especially for unmarked crosswalks?
With everything getting connected to the internet it would be very practical for signalized crosswalks. Vehicle to everything communication is nothing short of a revolution
How practical is that for unmarked crosswalks?
I guess it's not
Quote from: Dirt Roads on March 24, 2021, 01:40:11 PM
Combined with electric motors, rubber tires are already a deadly combination. One of my colleagues was working on a rubber-tired AGT system in Florida and the [dispatcher] mistakenly released a driverless test train into his workzone. Needless to say, he didn't hear it coming but fortunately was able to jump to safety in the nick of time (we say it the same way in Appalachia, but where I grew up it's still spelt "knick"). Low-noise pavement would be even worse. Passenger compartments can be constructed to be virtually free from penetration of outside noises (discussed in some other recent threads, with arguments against that as well).
Good god, it's a real life trolley problem
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 24, 2021, 02:27:43 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 02:16:45 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on March 24, 2021, 01:59:29 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 01:49:16 PM
They're installing electronic alert systems at train crossings to replace noisy train horns. Why couldn't a similar idea work for crosswalks?
How practical is that, especially for unmarked crosswalks?
With everything getting connected to the internet it would be very practical for signalized crosswalks. Vehicle to everything communication is nothing short of a revolution
How practical is that for unmarked crosswalks?
It's missing the point anyway, because |kernals12| is mistaken about what jaywalking actually means.
Generally (going by the UVC)...
1. Pedestrians are allowed to cross the street anywhere they please–crosswalk or not–with very few exceptions. Notably, crossing the street outside of a crosswalk is prohibited within one block of a signalized intersection or at a point where there exists a pedestrian bridge or tunnel. That's it. Everywhere else is perfectly legal.
2. Where there is a crosswalk–marked or unmarked–pedestrians may cross the street whether there is traffic coming or not, as long as they don't suddenly jump right out in front of traffic is "so close as to constitute an immediate hazard".
3. Where there is no crosswalk, pedestrians are required to yield to all cross traffic.
Putting this all together, then: There is an infinite number of places where pedestrians are legally permitted to cross the street, but at which they are required to first yield to cross traffic. I therefore don't think it's a good idea to make it more difficult for people to tell if cars are coming.
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:19:54 PM
So... your solution is to create an environment in which blind pedestrians no longer have to even know if cars are coming? That might not work so well on a multi-lane 45mph arterial road. Heck, let's just cross now: all the cars will stop anyway!
This is the 3rd time where you've used a most preposterous scenario to try to debunk my ideas. First you said that elevated highways were dangerous because sometimes you need to drive on the grass to avoid a crash, then you claim that elevated sidewalks are bad because they make it impossible to walk into the middle of the street to avoid muggers, and now you claim that road noise is good actually, because it warns people of oncoming traffic.
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 10:50:26 PM
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:19:54 PM
So... your solution is to create an environment in which blind pedestrians no longer have to even know if cars are coming? That might not work so well on a multi-lane 45mph arterial road. Heck, let's just cross now: all the cars will stop anyway!
This is the 3rd time where you've used a most preposterous scenario to try to debunk my ideas. First you said that elevated highways were dangerous because sometimes you need to drive on the grass to avoid a crash, then you claim that elevated sidewalks are bad because they make it impossible to walk into the middle of the street to avoid muggers, and now you claim that road noise is good actually, because it warns people of oncoming traffic.
I'll give you the first one. Although I've had someone from Mexico City personally tell me that accidents are bad on the elevated highways there precisely because traffic can't move around them–yeah, I'll give you that.
For your second point, I've also given other reasons for elevated sidewalks being bad. Not being able to avoid people was only one. Plenty of people already avoid pedestrian underpasses for safety reasons, and I shared an anecdote of my mother having to fend off a mugger on a pedestrian overpass. I once had a roommate in the Chicago suburbs who liked to go jogging in the middle of the night. He ran down the middle of the street because he felt safer that way. One night, a police officer stopped him and told him he should be jogging on the sidewalk. My roommate explained that there could be anyone hiding in the dark in the bushes, and he felt safer in the middle of the street–moving out of the way whenever a vehicle approached, of course. You know what the police officer did? He agreed with him! But, anyway, I also pointed out the awful aesthetics of a neighborhood filled with elevated sidewalks and dismantled your idea that utilities could use them as well.
But, as for the topic at hand, I stand by my assertion that people need to be able to hear cars coming. When I take my sons for a walk, I train them to use both their eyes and ears to know if traffic is coming. Relying on only your eyes is not smart. This is also true for cyclists, although sometimes it's harder to hear traffic while cycling. I can get a decent idea from tire noise alone if the vehicle I hear approaching from behind me is a small car (not terribly concerning), large pickup (need to get as far to the side as possible), or truck/bus (might even need to pull over and stop).
Quote from: kphoger on March 25, 2021, 09:53:13 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on March 24, 2021, 10:50:26 PM
Quote from: kphoger on March 24, 2021, 12:19:54 PM
So... your solution is to create an environment in which blind pedestrians no longer have to even know if cars are coming? That might not work so well on a multi-lane 45mph arterial road. Heck, let's just cross now: all the cars will stop anyway!
This is the 3rd time where you've used a most preposterous scenario to try to debunk my ideas. First you said that elevated highways were dangerous because sometimes you need to drive on the grass to avoid a crash, then you claim that elevated sidewalks are bad because they make it impossible to walk into the middle of the street to avoid muggers, and now you claim that road noise is good actually, because it warns people of oncoming traffic.
I'll give you the first one. Although I've had someone from Mexico City personally tell me that accidents are bad on the elevated highways there precisely because traffic can't move around them–yeah, I'll give you that.
For your second point, I've also given other reasons for elevated sidewalks being bad. Not being able to avoid people was only one. Plenty of people already avoid pedestrian underpasses for safety reasons, and I shared an anecdote of my mother having to fend off a mugger on a pedestrian overpass. I once had a roommate in the Chicago suburbs who liked to go jogging in the middle of the night. He ran down the middle of the street because he felt safer that way. One night, a police officer stopped him and told him he should be jogging on the sidewalk. My roommate explained that there could be anyone hiding in the dark in the bushes, and he felt safer in the middle of the street–moving out of the way whenever a vehicle approached, of course. You know what the police officer did? He agreed with him! But, anyway, I also pointed out the awful aesthetics of a neighborhood filled with elevated sidewalks and dismantled your idea that utilities could use them as well.
But, as for the topic at hand, I stand by my assertion that people need to be able to hear cars coming. When I take my sons for a walk, I train them to use both their eyes and ears to know if traffic is coming. Relying on only your eyes is not smart. This is also true for cyclists, although sometimes it's harder to hear traffic while cycling. I can get a decent idea from tire noise alone if the vehicle I hear approaching from behind me is a small car (not terribly concerning), large pickup (need to get as far to the side as possible), or truck/bus (might even need to pull over and stop).
For the first one, as I said before, that's what breakdown lanes are for.
For the second one, muggings are much less common than pedestrian-vehicle collisions, and your idea of walking into the middle of street would create a massive risk for that.
For the third one, noise pollution is a very real problem that creates many known health complications. I think there are better ways of protecting pedestrians than the roar of traffic
Quote from: kernals12 on March 25, 2021, 10:16:34 AM
For the second one, muggings are much less common than pedestrian-vehicle collisions
[citation needed]
Quote from: kernals12 on March 25, 2021, 10:16:34 AM
much
massive
very real
roar
Your choice of hyperbolic words has convinced me that you're right.
Also, since this asphalt is made from polyurethane, it should be easy to color. In hot places, they could make it white to reduce the urban heat island effect. Or they could make it some fun color for aesthetics.
Today, the California State Senate Committee on Transportation unanimously passed a bill (https://coronadotimes.com/news/2021/04/13/bill-to-fix-and-build-californias-roads-using-surplus-plastic-waste-advances-in-state-senate/) authored by Sen. Ben Hueso (D-San Diego) that would require Caltrans to conduct a feasibility study on the use of waste plastic as an asphalt additive.
This would offer a solution to the ever growing mass of waste plastic society is accumulating and it's been claimed that plastic could massively improve the durability of asphalt, saving taxpayer money on highway repairs. It's been a while since Sacramento has considered such a good idea.
Sounds good to me! Whether it will work as advertised remains to be seen.
Or concrete could continue to be utilized on freeways and high capacity expressways. California concrete isn't exactly the smoothest surface but what was built during the freeway boom of the 1950s and 1960s has staying power.
The problem is not all types of plastic are alike or suitable.
Plastics as an asphalt additive/stabilizer are already in use. The question is how broad the application can be. Some plastics can even be reused as concrete aggregate in some applications (think more sidewalks and curbs than bridges).
The bill also requires local governments to adopt whatever guidelines Caltrans publishes about using recycled plastics in concrete when doing local paving projects. I imagine this means that local costs for road repair projects will go up (at least initially) if contractors bidding those local road repair projects are forced to bid using specs that require integration of recycled plastics. It will also be interesting to see if the costs scale proportionately, i.e., will integrating plastics into concrete have the same cost per cubic yard for small scale projects (e.g., replacing a small section of damaged roadway following a water main break) as it will for replacing several hundred yards of thoroughfare.
I'm skeptical. If plastic was such a good asphalt binder, why haven't we been using it all this time?
Quote from: kernals12 on April 15, 2021, 11:05:42 AM
I'm skeptical. If plastic was such a good asphalt binder, why haven't we been using it all this time?
They don't know. That's why it's "a feasibility study on the use of waste plastic." It could happen if it's feasible. If so, which plastics, what ratio to other materials, etc. It may not be feasible. So it's fine to be skeptical.
It's a good idea to look at a lot of methods to use waste plastic. It would be better to stop using plastics completely, but that's not happening. Even by me.
If it doesn't work out, what would be the solution to getting rid of plastic wastes then? We can't just keep sending them to landfills, and especially not into the ocean.
Quote from: The Ghostbuster on April 15, 2021, 08:58:15 PM
If it doesn't work out, what would be the solution to getting rid of plastic wastes then? We can't just keep sending them to landfills, and especially not into the ocean.
At some point we'll find a non-polluting way to burn them.
Quote from: kernals12 on April 15, 2021, 09:28:19 PM
Quote from: The Ghostbuster on April 15, 2021, 08:58:15 PM
If it doesn't work out, what would be the solution to getting rid of plastic wastes then? We can't just keep sending them to landfills, and especially not into the ocean.
At some point we'll find a non-polluting way to burn them.
More likely, we'll find bacteria that can consume plastic. One such bacteria was found in a Japanese landfill in 2016 and scientists have created another. (Google "japan landfill bacteria eats plastic" for several references.) These new bacteria can hopefully be industrialized to create safe, biodegradable products. The only thing we have to fear is it becoming something out of a Stephen King novel or Japanese kaiju movie.
Quote from: skluth on April 19, 2021, 01:07:13 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on April 15, 2021, 09:28:19 PM
Quote from: The Ghostbuster on April 15, 2021, 08:58:15 PM
If it doesn't work out, what would be the solution to getting rid of plastic wastes then? We can't just keep sending them to landfills, and especially not into the ocean.
At some point we'll find a non-polluting way to burn them.
More likely, we'll find bacteria that can consume plastic. One such bacteria was found in a Japanese landfill in 2016 and scientists have created another. (Google "japan landfill bacteria eats plastic" for several references.) These new bacteria can hopefully be industrialized to create safe, biodegradable products. The only thing we have to fear is it becoming something out of a Stephen King novel or Japanese kaiju movie.
I can just see the bacteria mutating and getting loose to eat up everything made of plastic in its path. PVC pipes, wiring insulation, polyester clothes...
Quote from: kkt on April 19, 2021, 01:27:23 AM
I can just see the bacteria mutating and getting loose to eat up everything made of plastic in its path. PVC pipes, wiring insulation, polyester clothes...
My god, we'd be forced to go back to using materials that don't immediately break upon use. :P
That does sound like a great premise for a sci-fi short or an episode of something.
Given enough time, it will happen on its own. Plastics are energy dense and the compounds are not so tightly bounded that the energy is inaccessible in all Earth surface conditions. Such bacteria will feed from the outcrops of Anthropocene plastoconglomerates a million years from now.
A trio of students (https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/3043/binghamton-junior-starts-company-with-friends-to-use-recycled-glass-as-cement-replacement) at Binghamton have apparently found a way to make concrete from crushed glass. This has been possible for a long time but their breakthrough was in finding a way to use contaminated recycled glass. It's obviously better for the environment, but it's also stronger and cheaper than regular concrete, so they claim.
My whole life has crashed
Won't you pick the pieces up
'Cause it feels just like I'm driving on broken glass
Driving on, Driving on broken glass
Driving on, Driving on broken glass
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29025.0 (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29025.0)
Interesting to hear about glass concrete it reminds me of plastic bottles to turn into concrete too.
Quote from: bing101 on May 07, 2021, 10:50:18 PM
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29025.0 (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29025.0)
Interesting to hear about glass concrete it reminds me of plastic bottles to turn into concrete too.
You linked a thread the OP started himself...
Cement made from glass, not concrete. Cause they've been using glass as aggregate in concrete for a long time.
Interesting concept. I'm not sure their concrete would be any better for the environment than standard concrete. It may be at the front end, but it's not clear if it also gives off less CO2 than lime/clay-based cement currently used. Concrete is responsible for 8% of the total CO2 added annually, about 3.4% in production and the rest estimates from curing concrete. Hoover Dam and other large older dams are made of concrete still curing internally. I'd like to see more.
Thanks for posting.
Something between very wishful thinking and outright fake news.
At the very least their "patent pending" claim is dubious - I couldn't find any USPTO application by either company or names. Could be a legal issue for them.
confusing cement replacement with pozzolanic material is another significant issue.
Quote from: SectorZ on May 08, 2021, 08:16:54 AM
Quote from: bing101 on May 07, 2021, 10:50:18 PM
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29025.0 (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=29025.0)
Interesting to hear about glass concrete it reminds me of plastic bottles to turn into concrete too.
You linked a thread the OP started himself...
I remember hearing a similar idea where plastic could be asphalt or cement too. But it's a wait and see process for now.
I hope they make cement tires because all that glass will do a number on tires when it gets worn and there are potholes.
Ironically, Corning, not Binghamton, is the upstate NY city known for glass (https://home.cmog.org/).
Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic in Massachusetts have found that by adding an enzyme found in human blood they can make concrete that will heal any cracks automatically within 24 hours (https://www.designboom.com/technology/self-healing-concrete-fills-cracks-in-24-hours-06-15-2021/). The enzyme reacts with carbon dioxide in the air to form calcium carbonate.
They say that this would increase the cost of concrete by a small amount while quadrupling its durability. This is a big deal for highway and bridge engineering. And it's a reminder that plenty of innovation in Massachusetts can come from outside 495.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 16, 2021, 07:05:54 PM
And it's a reminder that plenty of innovation in Massachusetts can come from outside 495.
And from states with cold winters.
while interesting, i don't know if i can put much faith in a website of supposedly innovative ideas that banishes capital letters and seems to promote its monthly readership and article shares above anything else.
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on June 16, 2021, 07:57:45 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 16, 2021, 07:05:54 PM
And it's a reminder that plenty of innovation in Massachusetts can come from outside 495.
And from states with cold winters.
Lots of people say they like cold winters. But if we analyze things closely we see that the consensus among humans is that cold is bad, and even among plants and animals there is that same consensus.
When we ignore someone, we are "giving them the cold shoulder"
When two countries have poor relations, we describe those relations as "frosty"
When we say someone has a "cold personality" or is "cold hearted", we don't mean it positively
House Stark urged vigilance among its members by saying "Winter is coming"
This is not a coincidence, people have shown a clear preference for warm weather in surveys and in their migration patterns.
And plants and animals agree. In winter, not summer, trees shed their leaves and animals hibernate or migrate south. The Amazon Rainforest is teeming with biodiversity while Siberia is a barren wasteland.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 16, 2021, 10:31:07 PM
while interesting, i don't know if i can put much faith in a website of supposedly innovative ideas that banishes capital letters and seems to promote its monthly readership and article shares above anything else.
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-self-healing-concrete-lifespans.html
Quote from: thspfc on June 16, 2021, 10:39:51 PM
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on June 16, 2021, 07:57:45 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 16, 2021, 07:05:54 PM
And it's a reminder that plenty of innovation in Massachusetts can come from outside 495.
And from states with cold winters.
Lots of people say they like cold winters. But if we analyze things closely we see that the consensus among humans is that cold is bad, and even among plants and animals there is that same consensus.
When we ignore someone, we are "giving them the cold shoulder"
When two countries have poor relations, we describe those relations as "frosty"
When we say someone has a "cold personality" or is "cold hearted", we don't mean it positively
House Stark urged vigilance among its members by saying "Winter is coming"
This is not a coincidence, people have shown a clear preference for warm weather in surveys and in their migration patterns.
And plants and animals agree. In winter, not summer, trees shed their leaves and animals hibernate or migrate south. The Amazon Rainforest is teeming with biodiversity while Siberia is a barren wasteland.
Thank you
I took a class (Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures, fittingly) with the professor leading this research effort my junior year! Funny guy, he once broke rank with the standard academic stance and went on a rant for half of lecture about how *great* Wikipedia is :-D
Quote from: kernals12 on June 17, 2021, 07:44:48 AM
Quote from: thspfc on June 16, 2021, 10:39:51 PM
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on June 16, 2021, 07:57:45 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 16, 2021, 07:05:54 PM
And it's a reminder that plenty of innovation in Massachusetts can come from outside 495.
And from states with cold winters.
Lots of people say they like cold winters. But if we analyze things closely we see that the consensus among humans is that cold is bad, and even among plants and animals there is that same consensus.
When we ignore someone, we are "giving them the cold shoulder"
When two countries have poor relations, we describe those relations as "frosty"
When we say someone has a "cold personality" or is "cold hearted", we don't mean it positively
House Stark urged vigilance among its members by saying "Winter is coming"
This is not a coincidence, people have shown a clear preference for warm weather in surveys and in their migration patterns.
And plants and animals agree. In winter, not summer, trees shed their leaves and animals hibernate or migrate south. The Amazon Rainforest is teeming with biodiversity while Siberia is a barren wasteland.
Thank you
Two can play.
When one is angry, they are said to be "hot".
When one takes a gamble and loses, they got "burned".
When someone is in increasing trouble, they "have the heat turned up on them".
When there is anger between parties, people seek to "cool the situation".
Given how much CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere making concrete, I wonder how much can be removed with this process. As the phys.org link shows, 8% is due to that. Between not needing to replace stuff as frequently and what little CO2 can be sequestered within the healing process, any bit helps.
Quote from: Alps on June 16, 2021, 10:40:06 PM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 16, 2021, 10:31:07 PM
while interesting, i don't know if i can put much faith in a website of supposedly innovative ideas that banishes capital letters and seems to promote its monthly readership and article shares above anything else.
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-self-healing-concrete-lifespans.html
This site was much more informative.
In 2018 (https://newatlas.com/super-wood-stronger-steel/53307/), researchers at the University of Maryland discovered that, by boiling wood in Sodium Hydroxide and Sodium Sulfite and then putting it in a hot press, they could make wood as strong as steel at one sixth the weight and at a cost only slightly higher than regular wood.
They've created a company called Inventwood (https://www.inventwood.com/) to commercialize it.
We might one day be driving on wooden flyover ramps and bridges!
Unlikely, the concept of growth in the logging industry is not likely to happen due to environmental interests.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 10:32:16 AM
Unlikely, the concept of growth in the logging industry is not likely to happen due to environmental interests.
You clearly live under a rock. Timber is now in fashion as an environmentally sustainable alternative to concrete and steel. Have you not heard of Mass Timber?
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 10:34:45 AM
You clearly live under a rock.
Not only is that an entirely dismissive statement, it is also a stronger substance than wood and wolves.
Quote from: formulanone on June 20, 2021, 10:43:23 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 10:34:45 AM
You clearly live under a rock.
Not only is that an entirely dismissive statement, it is also a stronger substance than wood and wolves.
I mean, it's a Kernals12 thread. Isn't only looking surface deep into a topic and only seeing aspects that support his view just kind of how he rolls?
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 10:58:04 AM
Quote from: formulanone on June 20, 2021, 10:43:23 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 10:34:45 AM
You clearly live under a rock.
Not only is that an entirely dismissive statement, it is also a stronger substance than wood and wolves.
I mean, it's a Kernals12 thread. Isn't only looking surface deep into a topic and only seeing aspects that support his view just kind of how he rolls?
Look in a mirror lately?
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 10:59:22 AM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 10:58:04 AM
Quote from: formulanone on June 20, 2021, 10:43:23 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 10:34:45 AM
You clearly live under a rock.
Not only is that an entirely dismissive statement, it is also a stronger substance than wood and wolves.
I mean, it's a Kernals12 thread. Isn't only looking surface deep into a topic and only seeing aspects that support his view just kind of how he rolls?
Look in a mirror lately?
Actually I just did after I got out of the shower. Kind of was unavoidable though given we have three mirrors in the bathroom.
But in an actual response, lumber has been in a huge decline west of the Rocky Mountains since the middle of the 20th Century. The industry is hugely regulated and a lot of historic sites of lumber activity are now under some form of environmental preservation. Some of the massive lumber lumber operations just around me that are now defunct include:
- Almost everything around the City of Eureka and northern coast of California.
- Fort Bragg and the Lost Coast was nothing but lumber.
- Lake Tahoe was a huge site of lumber operations which has essentially totally disappeared.
- The Sanger Lumber Company operation at Millwood, the Kaweah Colony and other logging interests around Mineral King were direct factors in the creation of General Grant National Park (Kings Canyon) and Sequoia National Park.
Someone else can probably opine better than I can regarding other coastal states like Oregon and Washington. Suffice to say there would be some massive resistance to opening up logging rights for additional infrastructure development. The cost of timber is already sky rocketing and about the only reliable source nowadays is via Forest Service permit.
Out east, reaching sustainability with logging operations and maintenance of a healthy amount of Forest is easier to achieve. There is far more reliable water resources and an abundance of tree species that are potentially endangered.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 11:22:20 AM
But in an actual response, lumber has been in a huge decline west of the Rocky Mountains since the middle of the 20th Century. The industry is hugely regulated and a lot of historic sites of lumber activity are now under some form of environmental preservation. Some of the massive lumber lumber operations just around me that are now defunct include:
- Almost everything around the City of Eureka and northern coast of California.
- Fort Bragg and the Lost Coast was nothing but lumber.
- Lake Tahoe was a huge site of lumber operations which has essentially totally disappeared.
- The Sanger Lumber Company operation at Millwood, the Kaweah Colony and other logging interests around Mineral King were direct factors in the creation of General Grant National Park (Kings Canyon) and Sequoia National Park.
Someone else can probably opine better than I can regarding other coastal states like Oregon and Washington. Suffice to say there would be some massive resistance to opening up logging rights for additional infrastructure development. The cost of timber is already sky rocketing and about the only reliable source nowadays is via Forest Service permit.
Out east, reaching sustainability with logging operations and maintenance of a healthy amount of Forest is easier to achieve. There is far more reliable water resources and an abundance of tree species that are potentially endangered.
So what's the problem?
Fire.
Something like 80% of homes in the United States are made of wood and you guys are acting like this new wood will never work.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 11:26:01 AM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 11:22:20 AM
But in an actual response, lumber has been in a huge decline west of the Rocky Mountains since the middle of the 20th Century. The industry is hugely regulated and a lot of historic sites of lumber activity are now under some form of environmental preservation. Some of the massive lumber lumber operations just around me that are now defunct include:
- Almost everything around the City of Eureka and northern coast of California.
- Fort Bragg and the Lost Coast was nothing but lumber.
- Lake Tahoe was a huge site of lumber operations which has essentially totally disappeared.
- The Sanger Lumber Company operation at Millwood, the Kaweah Colony and other logging interests around Mineral King were direct factors in the creation of General Grant National Park (Kings Canyon) and Sequoia National Park.
Someone else can probably opine better than I can regarding other coastal states like Oregon and Washington. Suffice to say there would be some massive resistance to opening up logging rights for additional infrastructure development. The cost of timber is already sky rocketing and about the only reliable source nowadays is via Forest Service permit.
Out east, reaching sustainability with logging operations and maintenance of a healthy amount of Forest is easier to achieve. There is far more reliable water resources and an abundance of tree species that are potentially endangered.
So what's the problem?
The problem is that you're making a leap in logic that people would be universally on board for the lumber industry to expand. That's the biggest issue with your threads, you don't have a firm grasp of how the larger world around may/may not accept some of your futurism concepts.
Some people may protest but there's not much they can do to stop a logging boom.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 11:39:26 AM
Some people may protest but there's not much they can do to stop a logging boom.
That's how political movements get started, with advocacy. Political movements lead to things like National Parks, Wilderness Areas, State Parks and other areas of protection end of being created. I mean, just look at how many freeways weren't built because people protested.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 11:42:26 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 11:39:26 AM
Some people may protest but there's not much they can do to stop a logging boom.
That's how political movements get started, with advocacy. Political movements lead to things like National Parks, Wilderness Areas, State Parks and other areas of protection end of being created. I mean, just look at how many freeways weren't built because people protested.
Look how many more freeways were built despite protests.
:poke:
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 11:46:05 AM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 11:42:26 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 11:39:26 AM
Some people may protest but there's not much they can do to stop a logging boom.
That's how political movements get started, with advocacy. Political movements lead to things like National Parks, Wilderness Areas, State Parks and other areas of protection end of being created. I mean, just look at how many freeways weren't built because people protested.
Look how many more freeways were built despite protests.
All I'm trying to say to you is that not every area is willing to accept things that area another might. You're the one that is naive enough not understand why some people not want things like more logging.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 11:49:12 AMAll I'm trying to say to you is that not every area is willing to accept things that area another might. You're the one that is naive enough not understand why some people not want things like more logging.
The rural south would like to have a word with you. :bigass:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/hLB6GbuyaxNLoGsn8KXydHPndCKBZ5UxzEO_4oSLqyTADGyY9pwXt4Pr9kg6mLvYWga6Ty4BnMBaLngFRT6om8ApyZ_dA-TISVjEpio9ei_6lOBNhTP918VV98xy-dUAHGNQ_TL8kA)
Seriously: I read re the current lumber shortage that there's plenty of timber in the south, but not enough sawmills for the south to make up the shortfall right away. But with a major new source of demand, that could change to some extent.
There's also the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the likes of Bolsonaro would love this, most likely.
Eh I'd rather not have mass deforestation. Also, I still can't take you seriously due to your signature.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on June 20, 2021, 12:07:45 PM
Eh I'd rather not have mass deforestation. Also, I still can't take you seriously due to your signature.
Typical Needham simpleton.
Trees grow back. The timber industry plants more trees than they cut down.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 12:08:59 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on June 20, 2021, 12:07:45 PM
Eh I'd rather not have mass deforestation. Also, I still can't take you seriously due to your signature.
Typical Needham simpleton.
Trees grow back. The timber industry plants more trees than they cut down.
Wellesley is just Needham but slightly richer. I mean I guess but many people hate the lumber industry.
Beyond highways and bridges, this would utterly transform homebuilding. You'd need much less material and less labor to handle it. It would allow greater use of prefabrication since wall panels could be easily erected on site.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 12:08:59 PM
Trees grow back. The timber industry plants more trees than they cut down.
But for 10-20 years the land looks like crap.
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on June 20, 2021, 12:12:16 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 12:08:59 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on June 20, 2021, 12:07:45 PM
Eh I'd rather not have mass deforestation. Also, I still can't take you seriously due to your signature.
Typical Needham simpleton.
Trees grow back. The timber industry plants more trees than they cut down.
Wellesley is just Needham but slightly richer. I mean I guess but many people hate the lumber industry.
The people who hate the lumber industry are city slickers. The people of Northern Maine surely love the lumber industry.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 12:08:59 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on June 20, 2021, 12:07:45 PM
Eh I'd rather not have mass deforestation. Also, I still can't take you seriously due to your signature.
Typical Needham simpleton.
Trees grow back. The timber industry plants more trees than they cut down.
If we are being fair RGT is the one with a far more proven track record regarding how the world actually works. At least he doesn't get offended whenever someone doesn't agree with him one hundred percent.
But hey, I'm talking to the guy who keeps coming back to a road forum to mostly talk about urban design topics. You're the one who displays one dimensional thinking and the same opinions repeatedly.
Quote from: Tom958 on June 20, 2021, 12:04:02 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 11:49:12 AMAll I'm trying to say to you is that not every area is willing to accept things that area another might. You're the one that is naive enough not understand why some people not want things like more logging.
The rural south would like to have a word with you. :bigass:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/hLB6GbuyaxNLoGsn8KXydHPndCKBZ5UxzEO_4oSLqyTADGyY9pwXt4Pr9kg6mLvYWga6Ty4BnMBaLngFRT6om8ApyZ_dA-TISVjEpio9ei_6lOBNhTP918VV98xy-dUAHGNQ_TL8kA)
Seriously: I read re the current lumber shortage that there's plenty of timber in the south, but not enough sawmills for the south to make up the shortfall right away. But with a major new source of demand, that could change to some extent.
There's also the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the likes of Bolsonaro would love this, most likely.
But even in states like Florida there has a been a huge decline in the lumber industry. There was some sizeable timber operations at Fivay, Centralia and all over the Green Swamp (this is naming just a couple out of dozens) which are all largely now defunct. I'm actually surprised that phosphate mining has managed to hand in there to the scale it is currently at.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 12:20:12 PM
Quote from: Tom958 on June 20, 2021, 12:04:02 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 11:49:12 AMAll I'm trying to say to you is that not every area is willing to accept things that area another might. You're the one that is naive enough not understand why some people not want things like more logging.
The rural south would like to have a word with you. :bigass:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/hLB6GbuyaxNLoGsn8KXydHPndCKBZ5UxzEO_4oSLqyTADGyY9pwXt4Pr9kg6mLvYWga6Ty4BnMBaLngFRT6om8ApyZ_dA-TISVjEpio9ei_6lOBNhTP918VV98xy-dUAHGNQ_TL8kA)
Seriously: I read re the current lumber shortage that there's plenty of timber in the south, but not enough sawmills for the south to make up the shortfall right away. But with a major new source of demand, that could change to some extent.
There's also the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the likes of Bolsonaro would love this, most likely.
But even in states like Florida there has a been a huge decline in the lumber industry. There was some sizeable timber operations at Fivay, Centralia and all over the Green Swamp (this is naming just a couple out of dozens) which are all largely now defunct. I'm actually surprised that phosphate mining has managed to hand in there to the scale it is currently at.
Is this decline in the timber industry due to environmentalists or the massive decline in homebuilding (particularly in Florida) since 2008?
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 12:23:17 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 12:20:12 PM
Quote from: Tom958 on June 20, 2021, 12:04:02 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on June 20, 2021, 11:49:12 AMAll I'm trying to say to you is that not every area is willing to accept things that area another might. You're the one that is naive enough not understand why some people not want things like more logging.
The rural south would like to have a word with you. :bigass:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/hLB6GbuyaxNLoGsn8KXydHPndCKBZ5UxzEO_4oSLqyTADGyY9pwXt4Pr9kg6mLvYWga6Ty4BnMBaLngFRT6om8ApyZ_dA-TISVjEpio9ei_6lOBNhTP918VV98xy-dUAHGNQ_TL8kA)
Seriously: I read re the current lumber shortage that there's plenty of timber in the south, but not enough sawmills for the south to make up the shortfall right away. But with a major new source of demand, that could change to some extent.
There's also the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the likes of Bolsonaro would love this, most likely.
But even in states like Florida there has a been a huge decline in the lumber industry. There was some sizeable timber operations at Fivay, Centralia and all over the Green Swamp (this is naming just a couple out of dozens) which are all largely now defunct. I'm actually surprised that phosphate mining has managed to hand in there to the scale it is currently at.
Is this decline in the timber industry due to environmentalists or the massive decline in homebuilding (particularly in Florida) since 2008?
No, largely it just ran it's course historically by the mid-20th century and became unprofitable. The areas were largely later put under some form of environmental protection as the 20th Century progressed. A big example would be Withlacoochee State Forest which was once a major center of logging and phosphate mining in the Green Swamp. The Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area is another example of an area (Centrailia) which had been logged extensively but is now protected.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 12:23:17 PM
...or the massive decline in homebuilding (particularly in Florida) since 2008?
Please define "massive" and use statistics to back this up in regards to a increase/decline in home building within the Sunshine State. The housing market cooled a little bit at that time (as did nearly everywhere else), but ramped back up to pre-2008 levels as supply (rather than overall demand) declined. And that is also dependent on the area; places like Lehigh Acres and Port St. Lucie were the poster children for "popped housing market bubble in Florida", because they're ginormous rural tracts which attempted to be the Next Big Suburb without a corresponding city to hitch its economy onto. Which meant more affordable housing if you liked to commute 60-90 minutes away, but lacking much of anything else (containing no historic rural charm, remote privacy, nor the trappings of a bigger city, et al).
Also, most homes in Florida use concrete/cinderblock construction, so less wood is used as an overall percentage of material in most new homes built in Florida since the 1990s, due to windstorm durability and protection, as per local building codes. So interior walls and roofs are still wooden, but exterior-facing walls and supports are not.
There are probably more environmentally-preserved green spaces in Florida than the entire area of Massachusetts, but much of Florida was developed much later, at an essentially steady rate with some focus on preservation (though likely mostly due to the vast spaces being unfit/unfeasible for future development and capture of developer tax breaks).
Quote from: formulanone on June 20, 2021, 01:44:37 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 12:23:17 PM
...or the massive decline in homebuilding (particularly in Florida) since 2008?
Please define "massive" and use statistics to back this up in regards to a increase/decline in home building within the Sunshine State. The housing market cooled a little bit at that time (as did nearly everywhere else), but ramped back up to pre-2008 levels as supply (rather than overall demand) declined. And that is also dependent on the area; places like Lehigh Acres and Port St. Lucie were the poster children for "popped housing market bubble in Florida", because they're ginormous rural tracts which attempted to be the Next Big Suburb without a corresponding city to hitch its economy onto. Which meant more affordable housing you liked to commute 60-90 minutes away, but lacking much of anything else (containing no historic rural charm nor the trappings of a bigger city, et al).
Also, most homes in Florida use concrete/cinderblock construction, so less wood is used as an overall percentage of material in most new homes built in Florida since the 1990s, due to windstorm durability and protection, as per local building codes. So interior walls and roofs are still wooden, exterior-facing walls and supports are not.
There are probably more environmentally-preserved green spaces in Florida than the entire area of Massachusetts, but much of Florida is developed much later, at an essentially steady rate with some focus on preservation (though likely mostly due to the vast spaces being unfit/unfeasible for future development and capture of developer tax breaks).
Notably some of the most well known structures in Florida such as Disney World were built upon land which was considered poor for habitation. Granted the consumption of the Green Swamp by developers was a large reason why Withlacoochee State Forest was created in 1958. There was a similar pattern of aggressive development earlier in the 20th Century that led to the creation of Everglades National Park. If anything the State of Florida has done a better job at in-filling areas outside of protected areas rather than continuing to sprawl out. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale Metro Area always was something I found intriguing given it essentially backs up to the canals that were built at the edge of the Everglades in the early 20th Century.
It is also worth noting that coastal development in Florida is even more strict than structures inland. Monroe County comes to mind given, when I lived there any new construction of a permanent residential property required a 14 foot stilt. As you stated the principle building materials were hurricane resistant concrete and cinder block. Anything wooden essentially was nothing more than facade for the exterior/interior.
I agree it is a great idea, but actually growing enough timber to pull this off is going to be nearly if not impossible. It is however a great concept.
Quote from: bwana39 on June 21, 2021, 07:58:14 AM
I agree it is a great idea, but actually growing enough timber to pull this off is going to be nearly if not impossible. It is however a great concept.
Why do you assume that? Wood is probably our most easily obtained natural resource. It literally grows on trees.
Is this new wood fire resistant?
They say it is.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 21, 2021, 08:27:21 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on June 21, 2021, 07:58:14 AM
I agree it is a great idea, but actually growing enough timber to pull this off is going to be nearly if not impossible. It is however a great concept.
Why do you assume that? Wood is probably our most easily obtained natural resource. It literally grows on trees.
If we could make it out of leaves and pine straw, that would be completely accurate. Mostly true for poison oak.
While trees are natural and they do replenish themselves, the growth cycle for trees for complete boards is too long for the volume needed for these usages.
Truly, what we need to do is make sure we keep metals out of the landfills. Recycled steel is a far less environmentally unsound process than is making virgin steel.
Quote from: 1 on June 21, 2021, 08:28:07 AM
Is this new wood fire resistant?
I would love to know if carpenter ant/termite resistant as well. I presume it would be since I doubt those buggers could burrow thru steel.
Quote from: bwana39 on June 21, 2021, 11:14:31 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 21, 2021, 08:27:21 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on June 21, 2021, 07:58:14 AM
I agree it is a great idea, but actually growing enough timber to pull this off is going to be nearly if not impossible. It is however a great concept.
Why do you assume that? Wood is probably our most easily obtained natural resource. It literally grows on trees.
If we could make it out of leaves and pine straw, that would be completely accurate. Mostly true for poison oak.
While trees are natural and they do replenish themselves, the growth cycle for trees for complete boards is too long for the volume needed for these usages.
Truly, what we need to do is make sure we keep metals out of the landfills. Recycled steel is a far less environmentally unsound process than is making virgin steel.
I've been told hemp is pretty good for this.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 21, 2021, 04:07:17 PM
Quote from: bwana39 on June 21, 2021, 11:14:31 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 21, 2021, 08:27:21 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on June 21, 2021, 07:58:14 AM
I agree it is a great idea, but actually growing enough timber to pull this off is going to be nearly if not impossible. It is however a great concept.
Why do you assume that? Wood is probably our most easily obtained natural resource. It literally grows on trees.
If we could make it out of leaves and pine straw, that would be completely accurate. Mostly true for poison oak.
While trees are natural and they do replenish themselves, the growth cycle for trees for complete boards is too long for the volume needed for these usages.
Truly, what we need to do is make sure we keep metals out of the landfills. Recycled steel is a far less environmentally unsound process than is making virgin steel.
I've been told hemp is pretty good for this.
are you implying that hemp is good for making boards (let alone wood as strong as steel), or are you drifting off-topic?
Hemp is exceptionally strong with high long-chain tensile strength. It can also be finely shredded and added to conventional wood particles to make a relatively light and exceptionally strong (and dense!) workable material. The audio company Grado (out of Brooklyn) designed and built a limited-run set of headphones out of a composite of hemp and maple particles; the material is dense enough to withstand about 1800psi pressure while being completely nonresonant. The company that compounded the material for them is the process of testing it for domestic construction material. Disclaimer: I own a pair of these headphones; my business also sells Grado products. But compounds such as these are likely to emerge as alternative materials for multiple commercial uses.
And I haven't even started on carbon fiber as a construction material (gotta do something with all that coal besides burn it up!).
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 11:31:44 AM
Something like 80% of homes in the United States are made of wood and you guys are acting like this new wood will never work.
Not comparing apples to apples. Homes are made from wood because it works and you can go extremely cheap. There are a host of reasons why it would not serve well for this kind of infrastructure. And until this country gets its ass in gear and buries the environmental movement once and for all it will be a serious barrier to building anything.
Quote from: HighwayStar on June 23, 2021, 02:38:46 PM
And until this country gets its ass in gear and buries the environmental movement once and for all
This will never happen... and for good reason. Sure they do have some outsized influence at times but we should absolutely not throw environmental restrictions to the wind.
Quote from: US 89 on June 23, 2021, 03:17:10 PM
Quote from: HighwayStar on June 23, 2021, 02:38:46 PM
And until this country gets its ass in gear and buries the environmental movement once and for all
This will never happen... and for good reason. Sure they do have some outsized influence at times but we should absolutely not throw environmental restrictions to the wind.
Environmental extremism isn't a good thing but protection of certain areas is. Take a look at stuff like how a total lack of environmental concern worked out for the Tulare Lake and Owens Lake watersheds. Even the Dust Bowl is a really well known example of over exploiting a resource.
I'm one of the few here who would actually like to see something like this investigated further.
Here in the PNW, while we certainly love our forests, and we have certainly made a name for ourselves protecting them, we have come to learn that forest management and some level of deforestation is necessary to prevent widespread destruction from fires. Given this, there is no expectation that industries like logging, nor large forestry corporations like Weyerhaeuser, will suddenly disappear. Wood will likely remain a primary building material well into the future; frankly, I don't think wooden infrastructure would even register much in terms of increased timber application, as it would still pale in comparison to usage for housing or fuel.
If they can actually make it fireproof (and I'm sure there is much testing to do), and it's very light, and easier to build with, and maybe even cheaper, I don't see why we wouldn't see it tried at some point. Maybe as a pedestrian bridge first, and then a single-lane overpass second, and then on from there.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 21, 2021, 04:07:17 PM
Quote from: bwana39 on June 21, 2021, 11:14:31 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 21, 2021, 08:27:21 AM
Quote from: bwana39 on June 21, 2021, 07:58:14 AM
I agree it is a great idea, but actually growing enough timber to pull this off is going to be nearly if not impossible. It is however a great concept.
Why do you assume that? Wood is probably our most easily obtained natural resource. It literally grows on trees.
If we could make it out of leaves and pine straw, that would be completely accurate. Mostly true for poison oak.
While trees are natural and they do replenish themselves, the growth cycle for trees for complete boards is too long for the volume needed for these usages.
Truly, what we need to do is make sure we keep metals out of the landfills. Recycled steel is a far less environmentally unsound process than is making virgin steel.
I've been told hemp is pretty good for this.
That's because the people that told you were smoking it too.
Quote from: HighwayStar on June 23, 2021, 02:38:46 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 11:31:44 AM
Something like 80% of homes in the United States are made of wood and you guys are acting like this new wood will never work.
Not comparing apples to apples. Homes are made from wood because it works and you can go extremely cheap. There are a host of reasons why it would not serve well for this kind of infrastructure. And until this country gets its ass in gear and buries the environmental movement once and for all it will be a serious barrier to building anything.
Did you not read the part about this particular wood being stronger than steel?
Quote from: kernals12 on June 23, 2021, 10:13:12 PM
Did you not read the part about this particular wood being stronger than steel?
"Stronger" or "as strong"? Now you've said both.
I'm not sure we need anything stronger than steel...yet. As-strong-as is more than enough.
Quote from: jakeroot on June 23, 2021, 11:15:13 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 23, 2021, 10:13:12 PM
Did you not read the part about this particular wood being stronger than steel?
"Stronger" or "as strong"? Now you've said both.
I'm not sure we need anything stronger than steel...yet. As-strong-as is more than enough.
For a given weight, this stuff is much stronger than steel.
Do you have numbers? This list (ultimate tensile strength on Wikipedia) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_tensile_strength) gives different numbers for a whole bunch of materials. You probably want to look in the yield strength column.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 11:39:26 AM
Some people may protest but there's not much they can do to stop a logging boom.
Do you think booms happen apart from what people want?
After a successful trial in Cumbria, Britain's Department for Transportation has approved (https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/dft-approves-plastic-roads-additive) MacRebur's asphalt, made from waste plastic, for general use. It's not only good for the environment but it lasts longer, being more resistant to the damage caused by extreme temperatures. With less money spent repairing highways, we can spend more on building new ones.
Coating the world in plastic doesn't sound good for the environment, especially as the pavement degrades over time.
I heard of glass concrete and plastic asphalt brought up in other places in the world but that was in debate at the time though when I last saw an article on these things.
Quote from: Rothman on July 13, 2021, 11:43:50 PM
Coating the world in plastic doesn't sound good for the environment, especially as the pavement degrades over time.
So does Bitumen
Quote from: Rothman on July 13, 2021, 11:43:50 PM
Coating the world in plastic doesn't sound good for the environment, especially as the pavement degrades over time.
You realize that kernals12 thinks climate change is a good thing, right? He says that warmer winters in Boston outweigh the huge list of negatives such as entire islands full of people being underwater. Maybe hurting the environment is the whole reason he's obsessed with this.
Aspahlt, though, is the most recycled material in the world. Plastic is not and can only certain types - once cleaned - can be recycled only once or twice in their lifecycle. I do wonder how recyclable this pavement is at the end of its lifespan.
The UK must've renamed their cabinet post because previously it was Ministry of Transport (MOT) and was almost universally cursed for its stringent smog tests.
Quote from: seicer on July 14, 2021, 08:21:26 AM
Aspahlt, though, is the most recycled material in the world. Plastic is not and can only certain types - once cleaned - can be recycled only once or twice in their lifecycle. I do wonder how recyclable this pavement is at the end of its lifespan.
The article states that the additive is "non-recyclable waste plastic destined for landfill", implying that it's made up of plastics other than PETE (#1) and HDPE (#2).
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 14, 2021, 06:19:46 PM
Quote from: seicer on July 14, 2021, 08:21:26 AM
Aspahlt, though, is the most recycled material in the world. Plastic is not and can only certain types - once cleaned - can be recycled only once or twice in their lifecycle. I do wonder how recyclable this pavement is at the end of its lifespan.
The article states that the additive is "non-recyclable waste plastic destined for landfill", implying that it's made up of plastics other than PETE (#1) and HDPE (#2).
It has long frustrated me that anything other than a 1 or a 2 might as well be chucked into the regular bin. Same for other trash such as pizza boxes which might be perfectly fine save for an olive oil stain and a couple of forgotten pizza bones. Boo hoo.
Quote from: Road Hog on July 14, 2021, 06:28:56 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 14, 2021, 06:19:46 PM
Quote from: seicer on July 14, 2021, 08:21:26 AM
Aspahlt, though, is the most recycled material in the world. Plastic is not and can only certain types - once cleaned - can be recycled only once or twice in their lifecycle. I do wonder how recyclable this pavement is at the end of its lifespan.
The article states that the additive is "non-recyclable waste plastic destined for landfill", implying that it's made up of plastics other than PETE (#1) and HDPE (#2).
It has long frustrated me that anything other than a 1 or a 2 might as well be chucked into the regular bin. Same for other trash such as pizza boxes which might be perfectly fine save for an olive oil stain and a couple of forgotten pizza bones. Boo hoo.
It's all about the money, of course. Recycling #1 and #2 turns a profit; anything else virgin material is cheaper than the recycled goods so we "can't" recycle them. Nobody wants to finance it and there's not the political will to enact a tax on production of virgin plastic.
I put all of my plastic waste in the bin and don't separate out anything by type of plastic. I'm not a chemical engineer so I have no idea what is what kind of plastic if it's not stamped on the bottom. If the recycling vendor wants to spend money digging the stuff they don't want out and throwing it away, let them.
I stopped recycling altogether when I started working for the county and realized they just incinerate all of that shit
At least with incineration, you can generate power. Many municipalities do that because of the high costs of landfills and recycling centers.
This is at least a start to hold companies responsible for recycling: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/maine-becomes-first-state-to-shift-costs-of-recycling-from-taxpayers-to-companies/2021/07/13/aa6fbe44-e416-11eb-8aa5-5662858b696e_story.html
Quote from: seicer on July 14, 2021, 06:54:55 PM
At least with incineration, you can generate power. Many municipalities do that because of the high costs of landfills and recycling centers.
This is at least a start to hold companies responsible for recycling: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/maine-becomes-first-state-to-shift-costs-of-recycling-from-taxpayers-to-companies/2021/07/13/aa6fbe44-e416-11eb-8aa5-5662858b696e_story.html
Incineration is also really, really, really bad for the environment.
Our recycling takes anything with a recycle symbol. They don't care what number.
Quote from: GaryV on July 16, 2021, 08:06:17 AM
Our recycling takes anything with a recycle symbol. They don't care what number.
Probably because it goes to the same landfill anyway
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 14, 2021, 06:19:46 PM
Quote from: seicer on July 14, 2021, 08:21:26 AM
Aspahlt, though, is the most recycled material in the world. Plastic is not and can only certain types - once cleaned - can be recycled only once or twice in their lifecycle. I do wonder how recyclable this pavement is at the end of its lifespan.
The article states that the additive is "non-recyclable waste plastic destined for landfill", implying that it's made up of plastics other than PETE (#1) and HDPE (#2).
I would rather have "non-recyclable waste plastic" going into a landfill than into a roadway where it could break down into microplastics and run-off into a stream or lake.
Quote from: seicer on July 14, 2021, 06:54:55 PM
At least with incineration, you can generate power. Many municipalities do that because of the high costs of landfills and recycling centers.
This is at least a start to hold companies responsible for recycling: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/maine-becomes-first-state-to-shift-costs-of-recycling-from-taxpayers-to-companies/2021/07/13/aa6fbe44-e416-11eb-8aa5-5662858b696e_story.html
Well, since the companies aren't just going to eat the cost, they'll pass the expenses along to the consumer - the taxpayer - anyway.
Quote from: SEWIGuy on July 16, 2021, 08:57:07 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 14, 2021, 06:19:46 PM
Quote from: seicer on July 14, 2021, 08:21:26 AM
Aspahlt, though, is the most recycled material in the world. Plastic is not and can only certain types - once cleaned - can be recycled only once or twice in their lifecycle. I do wonder how recyclable this pavement is at the end of its lifespan.
The article states that the additive is "non-recyclable waste plastic destined for landfill", implying that it's made up of plastics other than PETE (#1) and HDPE (#2).
I would rather have "non-recyclable waste plastic" going into a landfill than into a roadway where it could break down into microplastics and run-off into a stream or lake.
Breaking into fine dust is likely safer, and sun exposure is much more effective in a plastic embedded into a road arrangements. That's it, if you take microplastic story at face value to begin with.
Quote from: kalvado on July 16, 2021, 09:26:14 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on July 16, 2021, 08:57:07 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 14, 2021, 06:19:46 PM
Quote from: seicer on July 14, 2021, 08:21:26 AM
Aspahlt, though, is the most recycled material in the world. Plastic is not and can only certain types - once cleaned - can be recycled only once or twice in their lifecycle. I do wonder how recyclable this pavement is at the end of its lifespan.
The article states that the additive is "non-recyclable waste plastic destined for landfill", implying that it's made up of plastics other than PETE (#1) and HDPE (#2).
I would rather have "non-recyclable waste plastic" going into a landfill than into a roadway where it could break down into microplastics and run-off into a stream or lake.
Breaking into fine dust is likely safer, and sun exposure is much more effective in a plastic embedded into a road arrangements. That's it, if you take microplastic story at face value to begin with.
Microplastics are today's MSG.
– It's in there!
– So?
– It's bad.
– How?
– It's bad for health.
– Based on what science?
Quote from: kphoger on July 20, 2021, 11:49:40 AM
Quote from: kalvado on July 16, 2021, 09:26:14 AM
Quote from: SEWIGuy on July 16, 2021, 08:57:07 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 14, 2021, 06:19:46 PM
Quote from: seicer on July 14, 2021, 08:21:26 AM
Aspahlt, though, is the most recycled material in the world. Plastic is not and can only certain types - once cleaned - can be recycled only once or twice in their lifecycle. I do wonder how recyclable this pavement is at the end of its lifespan.
The article states that the additive is "non-recyclable waste plastic destined for landfill", implying that it's made up of plastics other than PETE (#1) and HDPE (#2).
I would rather have "non-recyclable waste plastic" going into a landfill than into a roadway where it could break down into microplastics and run-off into a stream or lake.
Breaking into fine dust is likely safer, and sun exposure is much more effective in a plastic embedded into a road arrangements. That's it, if you take microplastic story at face value to begin with.
Microplastics are today's MSG.
– It's in there!
– So?
– It's bad.
– How?
– It's bad for health.
– Based on what science?
I had an impression microplastic agenda dialed down after these events:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/groundbreaking-study-dangers-microplastics-may-be-unraveling
Quote from: Road Hog on July 14, 2021, 06:04:21 PMThe UK must've renamed their cabinet post because previously it was Ministry of Transport (MOT) and was almost universally cursed for its stringent smog tests.
The cabinet post has always been Secretary of State for Transport (when it was merely 'Minister of Transport', it wasn't a cabinet post). Well, at least since it was restored after Labour merged Transport in with other stuff so they could get away with ignoring it while pretending it was important.
The Ministry of Transport ceased to have that name in 1970. All the government departments named 'Ministry of x' rather than 'x Office' became 'Department of' around then.
MoT for the motor vehicle testing regime has long been an anachronism, even though it remains the term, and is probably where your confusion came from.
Quote from: thspfc on July 14, 2021, 08:16:28 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 13, 2021, 11:43:50 PM
Coating the world in plastic doesn't sound good for the environment, especially as the pavement degrades over time.
You realize that kernals12 thinks climate change is a good thing, right? He says that warmer winters in Boston outweigh the huge list of negatives such as entire islands full of people being underwater. Maybe hurting the environment is the whole reason he's obsessed with this.
The DfT is keen on environmentalism (and stopping climate change specifically within that*), as is the UK government in general. I imagine that finding a use for unrecyclable plastic waste, rather than unenvironmentally either landfill, incineration or exporting it for dumping/burning elsewhere, was why they looked at using plastics for road surfacing.
The slogan for resource usage in the UK goes: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In that order. This reuse (especially as the plastics involved can't be recycled) is a good thing.
*Though this is more about general environmentalism rather than specifically about climate change - while carbon would be released with transporting or incinerating waste, this notion goes beyond that. Landfill is deemed to be worse than this use, hence why this use has been approved.
Quote from: thspfc on July 14, 2021, 08:16:28 AM
Quote from: Rothman on July 13, 2021, 11:43:50 PM
Coating the world in plastic doesn't sound good for the environment, especially as the pavement degrades over time.
You realize that kernals12 thinks climate change is a good thing, right? He says that warmer winters in Boston outweigh the huge list of negatives such as entire islands full of people being underwater. Maybe hurting the environment is the whole reason he's obsessed with this.
Those islands are mostly outside the US, while Boston is certainly not, so I can't say he is entirely wrong.
Only people inside the US matter?
Quote from: kphoger on August 03, 2021, 04:35:36 PM
Only people inside the US matter?
US policy is made for the benefit of US constituents, not foreign nationals. Russian policy is made for the benefit of Russian constituents, not foreign nationals. Chinese policy is made for the benefit of Chinese constituents, not foreign nationals. Indian policy.....
Quote from: kphoger on August 03, 2021, 04:35:36 PM
Only people inside the US matter?
I live near Boston, and personally I care more about the people on random islands than I do the people of Boston.
Quote from: HighwayStar on August 03, 2021, 04:48:18 PM
Quote from: kphoger on August 03, 2021, 04:35:36 PM
Only people inside the US matter?
US policy is made for the benefit of US constituents, not foreign nationals. Russian policy is made for the benefit of Russian constituents, not foreign nationals. Chinese policy is made for the benefit of Chinese constituents, not foreign nationals. Indian policy.....
Lame-ass nationalism. Got it.
Quote from: HighwayStar on August 03, 2021, 04:23:29 PM
Quote from: thspfc on July 14, 2021, 08:16:28 AM
You realize that kernals12 ... says that warmer winters in Boston outweigh the huge list of negatives such as entire islands full of people being underwater. Maybe hurting the environment is the whole reason he's obsessed with this.
Those islands are mostly outside the US, while Boston is certainly not, so I can't say he is entirely wrong.
Quote from: HighwayStar on August 03, 2021, 04:48:18 PM
US policy is made for the benefit of US constituents, not foreign nationals. Russian policy is made for the benefit of Russian constituents, not foreign nationals. Chinese policy is made for the benefit of Chinese constituents, not foreign nationals. Indian policy.....
You do realize that |kernals12| doesn't set US policy, right?
Also, I'm fairly certain that it isn't actually "US policy" to allow "entire islands full of people being underwater" in order for the residents of a New England city buy lighter-weight socks for the winter.
I'm a bit baffled. What country
doesn't have some form of foreign policy?
Quote from: kphoger on August 03, 2021, 05:12:18 PM
Also, I'm fairly certain that it isn't actually "US policy" to allow "entire islands full of people being underwater" in order for the residents of a New England city buy lighter-weight socks for the winter.
Never mind all the socks for the climate refugees whose islands are now under water...
Since January, a handful of motorists in the town of Hampden, Maine have been experiencing a revolution (http://www.newscentermaine.com/amp/article/tech/first-of-its-kind-bridge-could-be-a-model-for-future-of-infrastructure-technology-developed-in-maine/97-604767ab-1899-4f58-8fc1-f31de3f0fbcb) right under their wheels. On Grist Hill Road, an old decaying 70 year old bridge was replaced by a new one. This one does away with the two materials we've been using for the last 150 years to build our civilization: steel and concrete. Instead this one, built by Advanced Infrastructure Technologies and developed in collaboration with the University of Maine, is made out of 5 lightweight beams consisting of a composite of fiberglass, carbon fiber, foam, and resin.
This results in a bridge that is lightweight, easy to install, and best of all, immune to rust. I'm guessing this bridge will be the first of tens of thousands. And I'm sure they're working on flyover ramps made out of this stuff.
It's fun when an invention makes it out of the laboratory.
You throw out terms like "revolutionary" and "ground breaking" pretty much on everything you post. It's a neat bridge in the link but come get me when 3D printers start constructing even 5% of new spans.
Since I did the hard work here, this is an ACTUAL story discussing the bridge in question.
https://www.tidc-utc.org/2021/02/24/the-grist-mill-bridge-in-hampden-maine-now-open/
(Also kudos to my alma mater on this one)
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 03, 2021, 07:10:32 PM
You throw out terms like "revolutionary" and "ground breaking" pretty much on everything you post. It's a neat bridge in the link but come get me when 3D printers start constructing even 5% of new spans.
Citation needed.
Also, I think that bridges that are completely immune to rust are a pretty big deal, but what do I know?
Quote from: kernals12 on August 03, 2021, 10:46:07 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 03, 2021, 07:10:32 PM
You throw out terms like "revolutionary" and "ground breaking" pretty much on everything you post. It's a neat bridge in the link but come get me when 3D printers start constructing even 5% of new spans.
Citation needed.
Easy, check your own post history.
Could railroad bridges be built with this material? :bigass:
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 03, 2021, 11:14:20 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on August 03, 2021, 10:46:07 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 03, 2021, 07:10:32 PM
You throw out terms like "revolutionary" and "ground breaking" pretty much on everything you post. It's a neat bridge in the link but come get me when 3D printers start constructing even 5% of new spans.
Citation needed.
Easy, check your own post history.
I just did, did not find a single other use of "revolutionary" or "groundbreaking"
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 03, 2021, 11:17:53 PM
Could railroad bridges be built with this material? :bigass:
Probably, but who cares?
Quote from: SectorZ on August 03, 2021, 07:44:17 PM
Since I did the hard work here, this is an ACTUAL story discussing the bridge in question.
https://www.tidc-utc.org/2021/02/24/the-grist-mill-bridge-in-hampden-maine-now-open/
(Also kudos to my alma mater on this one)
Quote from: kernals12 on August 03, 2021, 07:04:55 PM
This results in a bridge that is lightweight, easy to install, and best of all, immune to rust. I'm guessing this bridge will be the first of tens of thousands. And I'm sure they're working on flyover ramps made out of this stuff.
I'm sure they
aren't "working on flyover ramps made out of this stuff".
Quote from: kernals12 on August 03, 2021, 07:04:55 PM
Since January, a handful of motorists in the town of Hampden, Maine have been experiencing a revolution (https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/news/126518/hs2-3d-concrete-printing/) right under their wheels.
Quote from: kernals12 on August 04, 2021, 06:04:45 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 03, 2021, 11:17:53 PM
Could railroad bridges be built with this material? :bigass:
Probably, but who cares?
The link in your post takes me to a page that doesn't include the word "Maine" or "Hampden" anywhere on it. Yet, curiously, the article linked to says, "In a UK first, on-site 3D reinforced concrete printing is set to deliver environmental, cost and community benefits for Britain's new high-speed rail network."
:hmmm:
Quote from: Scott5114 on August 03, 2021, 04:49:44 PM
Quote from: HighwayStar on August 03, 2021, 04:48:18 PM
Quote from: kphoger on August 03, 2021, 04:35:36 PM
Only people inside the US matter?
US policy is made for the benefit of US constituents, not foreign nationals. Russian policy is made for the benefit of Russian constituents, not foreign nationals. Chinese policy is made for the benefit of Chinese constituents, not foreign nationals. Indian policy.....
Lame-ass nationalism. Got it.
Nationalism is how the world actually works, I did not write the rules, but if you seriously think the politicians running the show in Russia, China, India, or any other major player care about the Florida Keys you are delusional.
Quote from: kernals12 on August 04, 2021, 06:04:45 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 03, 2021, 11:17:53 PM
Could railroad bridges be built with this material? :bigass:
Probably, but who cares?
Transportation cares, businesses care, a good chunk of our economy cares.
Quote from: ET21 on August 05, 2021, 09:12:36 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on August 04, 2021, 06:04:45 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on August 03, 2021, 11:17:53 PM
Could railroad bridges be built with this material? :bigass:
Probably, but who cares?
Transportation cares, businesses care, a good chunk of our economy cares.
Don't forget, the OP is a car centric Urbanist. You say things like "train" or "bus" and they are instantly dismissed as falsehoods.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 05, 2021, 09:21:07 AM
Don't forget, the OP is a car centric Urbanist. You say things like "train" or "bus" and they are instantly dismissed as falsehoods.
I think anti-Urbanist might be more like it.
Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2021, 12:46:14 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 05, 2021, 09:21:07 AM
Don't forget, the OP is a car centric Urbanist. You say things like "train" or "bus" and they are instantly dismissed as falsehoods.
I think anti-Urbanist might be more like it.
He seems to be an urbanist apart from his strong dislike of public transportation.
Quote from: jakeroot on August 05, 2021, 01:10:23 PM
Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2021, 12:46:14 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 05, 2021, 09:21:07 AM
Don't forget, the OP is a car centric Urbanist. You say things like "train" or "bus" and they are instantly dismissed as falsehoods.
I think anti-Urbanist might be more like it.
He seems to be an urbanist apart from his strong dislike of public transportation.
He isn't. Remember the single family home vs. apartment debate?
Quote from: 1 on August 05, 2021, 01:18:24 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on August 05, 2021, 01:10:23 PM
Quote from: vdeane on August 05, 2021, 12:46:14 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 05, 2021, 09:21:07 AM
Don't forget, the OP is a car centric Urbanist. You say things like "train" or "bus" and they are instantly dismissed as falsehoods.
I think anti-Urbanist might be more like it.
He seems to be an urbanist apart from his strong dislike of public transportation.
He isn't. Remember the single family home vs. apartment debate?
Yeah, I do now. I must be thinking of someone else. I definitely recall him indicating that he liked to walk. Does that make him an urbanist?
It looks like they built the bridge out of the same basic material that composes the plastic 2X4s in Home Depot or Lowe's. I'm not sure it's revolutionary, but it's definitely the logical progression for construction based on current known technology and it's good that they built it. What would make it revolutionary would be making it out of all that plastic we hardly recycle and ends up in landfills (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/21/us-plastic-recycling-landfills)after we've gone through all the effort of separating it.
Local officials were on hand to watch a bridge withstand 180,000 pounds (https://www.ltu.edu/news/?_from=/index.asp&_opt=detail&_cid=c602e28a-ad5b-4d83-be95-69a888887bf0) of pressure in a small area before finally breaking. The demonstration was at a lab at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan. The bridge in question was reinforced with carbon fiber strands that are .7 inches in diameter, instead of traditional steel rebar.
Carbon fiber is incredibly strong and doesn't rust, making it able to withstand all the road salt they use during Michigan's harsh winters. They predict the bridge will last 100 years, 25 more than conventional ones, and that it will require far less maintenance during that time. It's more expensive upfront but over time, it will be cheaper. Plans are to build 2 such bridges as part of a reconstruction project of I-94 in Detroit.
We know about carbon fiber on transportation infrastructure already. See the Boeing 787.
Quote from: SkyPesos on August 14, 2021, 03:13:04 PM
We know about carbon fiber on transportation infrastructure already. See the Boeing 787.
It's non-resonant either, so consistent shaking or vibration won't affect the concrete around it (rebar is very good at transmitting sonic waves!). Been used for speaker cones, tonearms, and other structural purposes in the audio industry for over three decades now. Better to shred/granulate all that coal underground and process it into fiber than burn it these days!
The inventor emailed me, saying he hopes this stuff can be on the market soon enough to benefit from the infrastructure bill.
Highways England is using asphalt enhanced with graphene, layers of carbon atoms only one atom thick, to resurface part of the A1 (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-58501947). This is the first time pure graphene has been used in asphalt, one Italian company is selling graphene asphalt, but it's mixed with waste plastic.
Graphene is 200 times stronger than steel on a pound per pound basis and offers extremely high thermal conductivity. Both of those things offer obvious advantage for pavement durability.
Nationwide Engineering Group of England has used concrete enhanced with graphene (https://www.graphene-info.com/mason-graphite-announces-commercial-use-graphene-enhanced-concrete) (a 2d material consisting of carbon atoms in a hexagonal lattice just one atom thick) on a new residential subdivision to form the building's foundation.
They claim it makes the concrete 30% stronger, reduces water penetration, and most interestingly of all: eliminates the need for rebar. Steel rebar is very troublesome. Over time it corrodes and expands, damaging the concrete. That's what led to the collapse of the Surfside Condo Complex in Miami. So getting rid of it is a massive advance.
What matters here most is that this is a real commercial application, not a laboratory experiment. This could soon be the go-to material in construction.
If you ever go back to school, I have a suggestion for a term paper...
"Innovative Construction Solutions for the 21st Century"
...since you seem to have a lock on the topic.
Quote from: jakeroot on September 19, 2021, 05:42:05 PM
If you ever go back to school, I have a suggestion for a term paper...
"Innovative Construction Solutions for the 21st Century"
...since you seem to have a lock on the topic.
Are you being snarky or serious?
Quote from: kernals12 on September 19, 2021, 05:42:37 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on September 19, 2021, 05:42:05 PM
If you ever go back to school, I have a suggestion for a term paper...
"Innovative Construction Solutions for the 21st Century"
...since you seem to have a lock on the topic.
Are you being snarky or serious?
Nah, not snarky. I'm not like other posters who make fun of you for your topics. I don't mind it at all since I don't see anyone else talking about this stuff.
On the other hand, it is most of your posts, so it would be cool to culminate everything into some paper.
Graphenes are cute, but the holy grail is mass production of diamond (hardest-known substance) at scale. That will make space elevators possible.
Quote from: Road Hog on September 19, 2021, 09:29:00 PM
Graphenes are cute, but the holy grail is mass production of diamond (hardest-known substance) at scale. That will make space elevators possible.
We already had a discussion about using diamond as an asphalt aggregate (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=30030.0). People were skeptical although I imagine that diamond's extremely high thermal conductivity would be a big deal.
A robot (https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/rebar-tying-robot-set-loose-on-big-florida-highway-project/) is being used to do the tedious job of tying rebar on the Gateway Expressway Project in Clearwater, FL. The device can tie 1100 rebar intersections an hour and the manufacturer says it can cut the labor needed for laying rebar on bridge decks in half.
Scientists have long dreamed of mass producing spider silk, a material that is stronger than kevlar. Now a Japanese company called Spiber (https://vegconomist.com/investments-acquisitions/japans-spiber-reels-in-312m-for-vegan-spider-silk-facility-in-usa-plans-ipo/) says they're getting close, and are planning a new factory in Iowa.
As progress in carbon fiber seems to have stalled, spider silk composites could offer a strong, non-corroding alternative to steel.
Rice University (https://netl.doe.gov/node/10873) scientists have discovered a way of cheaply producing graphene with flash heating. A spinoff company, Universal Matter, is commercializing it, saying they'll be producing 1 ton per day by the middle of next year.
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 01:02:27 PM
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
In the first sentence: "helps combat global warming."
I thought you think that global warming is a good thing.
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 01:02:27 PM
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
(https://previews.123rf.com/images/kophoto/kophoto1303/kophoto130300059/18727850-burned-rubber-tire-track-on-an-asphalt-road-close-up.jpg)
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 01:02:27 PM
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
My eyes!
Quote from: SkyPesos on October 01, 2021, 01:08:14 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 01:02:27 PM
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
In the first sentence: "helps combat global warming."
I thought you think that global warming is a good thing.
I do, but this kind of paint will be helpful in dangerously hot cities.
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 12:08:59 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on June 20, 2021, 12:07:45 PM
Eh I'd rather not have mass deforestation. Also, I still can't take you seriously due to your signature.
Typical Needham simpleton.
Trees grow back. The timber industry plants more trees than they cut down.
The timber industry cuts down full-grown trees, and plants seedlings most of which die before they are full-grown.
Quote from: kkt on October 01, 2021, 05:00:19 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on June 20, 2021, 12:08:59 PM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on June 20, 2021, 12:07:45 PM
Eh I'd rather not have mass deforestation. Also, I still can't take you seriously due to your signature.
Typical Needham simpleton.
Trees grow back. The timber industry plants more trees than they cut down.
As they must in order for a mature forest to grow. They intentionally over plant because they want a full forest to return.
Face it, at least in the US forest management has not been an issue for decades. US forests have been expanding over the last century. And there are plenty of places where you can see forests that have been logged, replanted, and are regrown.
Third world countries might be different, but that is their problem.
The timber industry cuts down full-grown trees, and plants seedlings most of which die before they are full-grown.
I see that HighwayStar didn't even offer an opinion in his most recent post...
Quote from: 1 on October 01, 2021, 05:57:29 PM
I see that HighwayStar didn't even offer an opinion in his most recent post...
Yeah, he just quoted kkt. Must mean he agrees with him.
Quote from: 1 on October 01, 2021, 05:57:29 PM
I see that HighwayStar didn't even offer an opinion in his most recent post...
Seems there was some sort of technical difficulty. But I guess not offering an opinion is the best way to make everyone happy, though it does not contribute much to threads. :bigass:
Quote from: HighwayStar on October 01, 2021, 06:57:04 PM
Quote from: 1 on October 01, 2021, 05:57:29 PM
I see that HighwayStar didn't even offer an opinion in his most recent post...
Seems there was some sort of technical difficulty. But I guess not offering an opinion is the best way to make everyone happy, though it does not contribute much to threads. :bigass:
At least you contributed something to the general forum culture. I-70 in almost Baltimore is as prevalent here as Hypotenuse and I-366 now :bigass:
Quote from: HighwayStar on October 01, 2021, 06:57:04 PM
Quote from: 1 on October 01, 2021, 05:57:29 PM
I see that HighwayStar didn't even offer an opinion in his most recent post...
Seems there was some sort of technical difficulty.
The "technical difficulty" occurs when you start typing in a random spot. All you'd have to do to fix it is cut your reply and paste it at the bottom, making sure it's underneath the final quote tag.
Quote from: webny99 on October 01, 2021, 07:22:32 PM
Quote from: HighwayStar on October 01, 2021, 06:57:04 PM
Quote from: 1 on October 01, 2021, 05:57:29 PM
I see that HighwayStar didn't even offer an opinion in his most recent post...
Seems there was some sort of technical difficulty.
The "technical difficulty" occurs when you start typing in a random spot. All you'd have to do to fix it is cut your reply and paste it at the bottom, making sure it's underneath the final quote tag.
I know how the quote tags work, and have successfully used them on many occasions. But I think I will leave that one as is, a sort of Breezewood of commenting if you will.
I'm excitedly waiting for ultra high performance graphene enhanced self-healing concrete. You'd pour it straight into a mold, no rebar required, and you could make bridges that last for centuries.
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 04:31:28 PM
Quote from: SkyPesos on October 01, 2021, 01:08:14 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 01:02:27 PM
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
In the first sentence: "helps combat global warming."
I thought you think that global warming is a good thing.
I do, but this kind of paint will be helpful in dangerously hot cities.
Maybe they'd be less dangerously hot if they weren't warming. :hmmm:
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on October 02, 2021, 01:42:54 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 04:31:28 PM
Quote from: SkyPesos on October 01, 2021, 01:08:14 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 01:02:27 PM
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
In the first sentence: "helps combat global warming."
I thought you think that global warming is a good thing.
I do, but this kind of paint will be helpful in dangerously hot cities.
Maybe they'd be less dangerously hot if they weren't warming. :hmmm:
They'd still be dangerously hot
Quote from: kernals12 on October 02, 2021, 02:05:29 PM
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on October 02, 2021, 01:42:54 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 04:31:28 PM
Quote from: SkyPesos on October 01, 2021, 01:08:14 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 01:02:27 PM
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
In the first sentence: "helps combat global warming."
I thought you think that global warming is a good thing.
I do, but this kind of paint will be helpful in dangerously hot cities.
Maybe they'd be less dangerously hot if they weren't warming. :hmmm:
They'd still be dangerously hot
Is this like Pop Tarts where the paint is cool that it's hot?
Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 16, 2021, 10:31:07 PM
while interesting, i don't know if i can put much faith in a website of supposedly innovative ideas that banishes capital letters and seems to promote its monthly readership and article shares above anything else.
they get my vote lol
One startup is pushing the use of hypersonic projectiles for tunnel boring
Spanish researchers have created a self-healing concrete (https://www.forconstructionpros.com/concrete/news/21759352/researchers-from-spain-develop-new-selfhealing-concrete).
This will greatly increase the net present value of highway expansion projects.
OCSIAL (https://www.bne.eu/russian-founded-graphene-nanotube-leader-aims-to-raise-up-to-800mn-through-spac-merger-222831/), a manufacturer of carbon nanotubes based in Russia, is going through a SPAC merger in order to go public. They hope to raise $800 million for expansion.
Carbon nanotubes have incredible tensile strength, which makes them ideal for replacing steel rebar in concrete. It might even increase electric conductivity enough to create a built in heating element.
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-versatile-moldable-wood.html
So that super-strong wood can also be easily molded. That's ideal for curved highway ramps.
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 01:02:27 PM
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
The polar opposite of Vantablack (https://science.howstuffworks.com/vantablack.htm).
Quote from: formulanone on November 05, 2021, 12:02:40 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on October 01, 2021, 01:02:27 PM
Purdue University (http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/whitest-paint-in-the-world/amp) researchers have developed the world's whitest paint, with an albedo of .981. They say it could eliminate the need for air conditioning (and drive up the neat for heating). This would greatly reduce the amount of softening of asphalt that leads to rutting.
The polar opposite of Vantablack (https://science.howstuffworks.com/vantablack.htm).
They should spray that stuff on Alaska's highways
Quote from: kernals12 on June 16, 2021, 07:05:54 PM
Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic in Massachusetts have found that by adding an enzyme found in human blood they can make concrete that will heal any cracks automatically within 24 hours (https://www.designboom.com/technology/self-healing-concrete-fills-cracks-in-24-hours-06-15-2021/). The enzyme reacts with carbon dioxide in the air to form calcium carbonate.
They say that this would increase the cost of concrete by a small amount while quadrupling its durability. This is a big deal for highway and bridge engineering. And it's a reminder that plenty of innovation in Massachusetts can come from outside 495.
The guy who discovered it, Nima Rahbar, told me in an email that he founded a company, Enzymatic, to commercialize it.
We really need self healing, ultra high performance fiber reinforced concrete.
Imagine if you could build bridges without any rebar that would last for centuries.
Is there a word for "gadgetbahn" , except it's for roads? I think that word would apply to most things in this thread.
Quote from: SkyPesos on November 23, 2021, 10:22:11 PM
Is there a word for "gadgetbahn" , except it's for roads? I think that word would apply to most things in this thread.
And just like the streetcar fanatics who coined that phrase, you are making the questionable assumption that today's solutions are satisfying.
A startup called Petra (https://www.wired.com/story/new-tech-cuts-rock-without-grinding-it/) has come out of stealth mode with a new tunnel boring technology that melts instead of drills through rock. They are targeting underground utility lines in the short term but if it works there, it's inevitable it'll be used for larger earth moving jobs.
Quote from: kernals12 on December 10, 2021, 09:30:45 PM
A startup called Petra (https://www.wired.com/story/new-tech-cuts-rock-without-grinding-it/) has come out of stealth mode with a new tunnel boring technology that melts instead of drills through rock. They are targeting underground utility lines in the short term but if it works there, it's inevitable it'll be used for larger earth moving jobs.
Seems like a disaster waiting to happen if they hit an unknown gas line.
Quote from: Rothman on December 10, 2021, 10:24:54 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on December 10, 2021, 09:30:45 PM
A startup called Petra (https://www.wired.com/story/new-tech-cuts-rock-without-grinding-it/) has come out of stealth mode with a new tunnel boring technology that melts instead of drills through rock. They are targeting underground utility lines in the short term but if it works there, it's inevitable it'll be used for larger earth moving jobs.
Seems like a disaster waiting to happen if they hit an unknown gas line.
Wouldn't that be a problem with conventional drilling methods?
It would be a problem, sure, but a conventional drill wouldn't be running into the flammable gas with a temperature high enough to melt rock.
Quote from: kernals12 on December 10, 2021, 09:30:45 PM
technology that melts instead of drills through rock.
So where does this lava end up? The melted rock is going to cool and solidify sometime. It doesn't just go away.
Quote from: GaryV on December 11, 2021, 08:11:08 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on December 10, 2021, 09:30:45 PM
technology that melts instead of drills through rock.
So where does this lava end up? The melted rock is going to cool and solidify sometime. It doesn't just go away.
I suspect it is about shock cooling to form stressed glass which breaks into small pieces.
Quote from: kernals12 on December 10, 2021, 09:30:45 PM
technology that melts instead of drills through rock.
Quote from: GaryV on December 11, 2021, 08:11:08 AM
So where does this lava end up? The melted rock is going to cool and solidify sometime. It doesn't just go away.
Quote from: kalvado on December 11, 2021, 09:03:39 AM
I suspect it is about shock cooling to form stressed glass which breaks into small pieces.
Every construction project is *supposed* to calculate and develop detailed management plans for cut/fill/borrow and muck. I've worked on some projects that were brilliantly managed, others that didn't pay attention to the plan, and a few that seemed *very* confused about the whole concept. Yes, the lava would be considered to be "muck". By the way, there are entire industries that revolve around management of molten slag from a wide variety of sources, so this shouldn't be a problem (but would definitely cost more to transport and dispose). Like everything else, I would consider this a complex math problem.
The Michigan DOT put out an interesting press release (https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9620_11057-575040--,00.html) about their use of carbon fiber reinforced bridges. They're building 2 of them as part of the reconstruction of Interstate 94 in Detroit.
The big benefit is that, unlike steel, carbon fiber doesn't rust, so no more concrete cancer.
Quote from: kernals12 on January 06, 2022, 11:59:34 PM
The Michigan DOT put out an interesting press release (https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9620_11057-575040--,00.html) about their use of carbon fiber reinforced bridges. They're building 2 of them as part of the reconstruction of Interstate 94 in Detroit.
The big benefit is that, unlike steel, carbon fiber doesn't rust, so no more concrete cancer.
The carbon fiber replaces the steel inside the bridge. I've wondered why it hasn't been used before, frankly...the reduced mass would also facilitate the process (requiring a reduced physical effort, uses more efficient equipment).
Only drawback is that I've heard — somewhat dubiously — that carbon fiber does tend to break down slightly over time, depending on impacts and the bonding of the composites in use. Perhaps insulating it with concrete would slow down that process, but it probably has to be a carefully-chosen material mix which will not corrode the composite matrix.
Quote from: formulanone on January 12, 2022, 09:34:13 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on January 06, 2022, 11:59:34 PM
The Michigan DOT put out an interesting press release (https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9620_11057-575040--,00.html) about their use of carbon fiber reinforced bridges. They're building 2 of them as part of the reconstruction of Interstate 94 in Detroit.
The big benefit is that, unlike steel, carbon fiber doesn't rust, so no more concrete cancer.
The carbon fiber replaces the steel inside the bridge. I've wondered why it hasn't been used before, frankly...the reduced mass would also facilitate the process (requiring a reduced physical effort, uses more efficient equipment).
Only drawback is that I've heard — somewhat dubiously — that carbon fiber does tend to break down slightly over time, depending on impacts and the bonding of the composites in use. Perhaps insulating it with concrete would slow down that process, but it probably has to be a carefully-chosen material mix which will not corrode the composite matrix.
The problem is carbon fiber is terrifically expensive.
Quote from: kernals12 on January 12, 2022, 01:08:22 PM
Quote from: formulanone on January 12, 2022, 09:34:13 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on January 06, 2022, 11:59:34 PM
The Michigan DOT put out an interesting press release (https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9620_11057-575040--,00.html) about their use of carbon fiber reinforced bridges. They're building 2 of them as part of the reconstruction of Interstate 94 in Detroit.
The big benefit is that, unlike steel, carbon fiber doesn't rust, so no more concrete cancer.
The carbon fiber replaces the steel inside the bridge. I've wondered why it hasn't been used before, frankly...the reduced mass would also facilitate the process (requiring a reduced physical effort, uses more efficient equipment).
Only drawback is that I've heard — somewhat dubiously — that carbon fiber does tend to break down slightly over time, depending on impacts and the bonding of the composites in use. Perhaps insulating it with concrete would slow down that process, but it probably has to be a carefully-chosen material mix which will not corrode the composite matrix.
The problem is carbon fiber is terrifically expensive.
So is having major spans closed for years just 36 years after their completion.
https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/bridges-stairs-and-other-structures/bridges/west-seattle-bridge-program/west-seattle-bridge-repair
Quote from: kkt on January 19, 2022, 12:44:10 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on January 12, 2022, 01:08:22 PM
Quote from: formulanone on January 12, 2022, 09:34:13 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on January 06, 2022, 11:59:34 PM
The Michigan DOT put out an interesting press release (https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9620_11057-575040--,00.html) about their use of carbon fiber reinforced bridges. They're building 2 of them as part of the reconstruction of Interstate 94 in Detroit.
The big benefit is that, unlike steel, carbon fiber doesn't rust, so no more concrete cancer.
The carbon fiber replaces the steel inside the bridge. I've wondered why it hasn't been used before, frankly...the reduced mass would also facilitate the process (requiring a reduced physical effort, uses more efficient equipment).
Only drawback is that I've heard — somewhat dubiously — that carbon fiber does tend to break down slightly over time, depending on impacts and the bonding of the composites in use. Perhaps insulating it with concrete would slow down that process, but it probably has to be a carefully-chosen material mix which will not corrode the composite matrix.
The problem is carbon fiber is terrifically expensive.
So is having major spans closed for years just 36 years after their completion.
https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/bridges-stairs-and-other-structures/bridges/west-seattle-bridge-program/west-seattle-bridge-repair
So which is more expensive? Also please include the time value of money in your calculations.
https://www.agg-net.com/news/tarmac-in-basalt-fibre-low-carbon-concrete-trial
In Britain, they are using concrete reinforced with basalt fiber instead of steel for improvements to the M42 at Junction 6. Basalt fiber doesn't rust, which means structures built with it will last much longer.
https://www.uta.edu/news/news-releases/2022/02/11/hossain-highway-pins
A professor at UT Arlington has received 2 contracts from TxDOT for a new method of slope stabilization that is 50% less expensive than conventional means
Quaise Energy has received $40 million (https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/geothermal-startup-quaise-raises-40m-for-ultra-deep-drilling) in VC funding to begin real world demonstrations of its microwave drilling technology. Their intended market is geothermal energy, but I see no reason why the same technology could not be used for highway tunnels.
QuoteThe engineers battling to stop global warming ruining roads - BBC
(https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60197858)
Australia's floods of 2010-11 spread devastation and damage across Queensland, with 33 people losing their lives and causing billions in losses across the state. The floods also damaged 19,000km of roads, including those needed for emergency and delivery vehicles.
It was a stark lesson in the importance of weather-proofing Queensland's most vulnerable roads, to ensure that future flooding would lead to fewer people being cut off.
Since then, Queensland has been using a process called foamed bitumen stabilisation. This injects small amounts of air and cold water into hot bitumen, the sticky dark substance typically used for road surfaces.
The bitumen then expands and forms a water-resistant layer. The result is a stronger yet flexible road surface or pavement that is better able to withstand flooding.
Rest of article linked in headline
Nima Rahbar, the professor at WPI who developed the concrete that heals itself with enzymes from human blood, told me that they've poured a test slab of it at an Air Force Base in Florida and in a few months they will check the results.
Wonder how well Vantablack would work on a signal backplate?
Cornell University showed off 3D printing robotic arm (https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/05/3d-printing-robot-enables-sustainable-construction). They say it eliminates the need for concrete molds. Combined with fiber reinforcement replacing rebar, this would utterly transform civil engineering and make all sorts of projects much less expensive.
I'm thinking about the end of life-cycle for concrete made with millions of tiny fibers instead of rebar; can one recycle it in the same manner we do now? It's easy to crush the concrete away from rebar to separate the two components and the ferrous nature of the steel rebar makes it even easier to get useful aggregate from old concrete. But if it's full of threads made of fiberglass, graphite or even graphene, what then? Will those contaminate the aggregate with a material that detracts from its usefulness? To the point where we have to landfill older fiber concrete?
Seems like a solvable problem, I hope.
There is also a nagging concern I have about tiny fibers and the potential health and environmental hazard. Folks who work with fiberglass need to be protected from inhaling fine particles, and we all know about asbestos. Will these brilliant new nano-fibers end up having a similar effect when aerosolized during emplacement or removal and 'drill' into people's lung tissue and foment cancer? I really hope not because I would hate for the engineering potential of nano-fibers to be torpedoed by this potential problem.
Prof. Rahbar, inventor of the self-healing concrete, told me in an e-mail that the demonstration at the air force base in Florida went well and that the company he co-founded to commercialize it, Enzymatic, will be doing further durability tests to make it more marketable.
Study finds graphene is not harmful
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-graphene.html
Quote from: kernals12 on June 17, 2022, 03:06:13 PM
Study finds graphene is not harmful
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-graphene.html
1. It is graphene oxide, not graphene.
2. "PA6-rGO induced a modest and transient pulmonary inflammation." isn't exactly "not harmful"
Iowa State University is testing a sprayable form (https://news.engineering.iastate.edu/2022/06/30/ccee-researcher-sri-sritharan-tests-a-sprayable-form-of-uhpc-a-blend-of-concrete-and-steel-fibers/) of Ultra High Performance Concrete in collaboration with the Iowa and California Departments of Transportation. Professor Sri Sritharan says it will cut bridge construction times from months to days by allowing larger, lightweight pieces to be assembled on-site.
Quote from: kernals12 on August 20, 2022, 06:54:59 PM
Iowa State University is testing a sprayable form (https://news.engineering.iastate.edu/2022/06/30/ccee-researcher-sri-sritharan-tests-a-sprayable-form-of-uhpc-a-blend-of-concrete-and-steel-fibers/) of Ultra High Performance Concrete in collaboration with the Iowa and California Departments of Transportation. Professor Sri Sritharan says it will cut bridge construction times from months to days by allowing larger, lightweight pieces to be assembled on-site.
Anything new compared to their 15 year old documents?
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/39528/dot_39528_DS1.pdf
In my latest communication with Professor Rahbar, the inventer of self healing concrete, he says they're now finishing tests to get it certified for use in New York and California and that they should be finished by the end of the semester.
Graphene enhanced asphalt, developed by the Italian company Directa Plus, is being tested in England (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-62735935). Previous tests have found it doubles asphalt lifespan.
The company Directa Plus has been given a contract to resurface 150 miles of the A4 Autostrada between Turin and Milan using graphene enhanced asphalt.
https://www.graphene-info.com/directa-plus-supply-graphene-250-km-italian-motorway-road-surfacing-project
Quote from: kernals12 on October 21, 2022, 09:54:21 AM
The company Directa Plus has been given a contract to resurface 150 miles of the A4 Autostrada between Turin and Milan using graphene enhanced asphalt.
https://www.graphene-info.com/directa-plus-supply-graphene-250-km-italian-motorway-road-surfacing-project
OK, now reality check.
DP is not awarded contract to resurface, but will "supply several tons of material in 2023/2024"
paving 200 km x 15m wide x 2 cm deep road would use 138 000 metric tons of asphalt, give or take. Minimal published graphene oxide content I see in published papers is 0.1%, with 1% being more common - for at least 138 tons, and ideally several thousand tons required for the project.
So correct reading would be "a small piece of the project would use additive supplied by DP for direct comparison of asphalt with additive against traditional technique"
Company's 2021 revenue is €9.45M. Given that 150 miles of highway would be in $100M's,
The Dutch will be deploying a remote controlled movable barrier (https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/nieuws/archief/2023/04/primeur-rijdende-barriere-op-de-a2) during construction on the A2. The purpose in this application is to provide better protection for workers, but it seems inevitable this will replace those giant trucks now used to switch over reversible lanes.
Quote from: kernals12 on April 14, 2023, 03:12:29 PM
The Dutch will be deploying a remote controlled movable barrier (https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/nieuws/archief/2023/04/primeur-rijdende-barriere-op-de-a2) during construction on the A2. The purpose in this application is to provide better protection for workers, but it seems inevitable this will replace those giant trucks now used to switch over reversible lanes.
Would be nice to add some pricing information...
(https://i.imgur.com/sD423qd.png)
Do you guys think it will ever be possible to build giant machines that can spit out a road in one fell-swoop? I think it's fair to say that such an invention would do more than any other to bring the third world out of poverty.
No
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on April 29, 2023, 02:05:56 PM
No
Is that because of the need to level the surface to build a road?
In the illustration the road building machine is accompanied by its own squadron of helicopters, apparently feeding materials to the building machine. Helicopters are extremely expensive to operate. Figure four hours of maintenance per hour of operation. Why would you use helicopters when you're constructing a perfectly good roadbed behind the machine that materials could come from?
Road building has many steps. Survey, pick route, level the route surface, install drainage, dig down and lay gravel, then concrete base probably with reinforcing metal bars, then the road surface, then markings, then signs and lights. I have trouble picturing one machine doing all those steps, especially since some steps require drying time in between them.
That idea was used in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. In the books, roads are built with machines that take in sand and other regolith in the front and extrude a perfectly good road in the rear. IIRC, the machines all run on solar power but run independently, needing no human operator. Of course, it's a lot easier when dealing with a virgin landscape like Mars than trying to build a road anywhere on our planet.
Quote from: skluth on April 29, 2023, 06:32:09 PM
That idea was used in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. In the books, roads are built with machines that take in sand and other regolith in the front and extrude a perfectly good road in the rear. IIRC, the machines all run on solar power but run independently, needing no human operator. Of course, it's a lot easier when dealing with a virgin landscape like Mars than trying to build a road anywhere on our planet.
Things would be significantly easier if there are no precipitation to worry about. Organics in the soil also make high temperature processing unfeasible.
This is pretty cool. They can move rock using rapidly expanding plasma rather than dynamite. The advantage is that it is far less risky to people and property nearby.
Quote from: kernals12 on April 29, 2023, 11:02:58 PM
This is pretty cool. They can move rock using rapidly expanding plasma rather than dynamite. The advantage is that it is far less risky to people and property nearby.
This is preferable in highly-populated areas and seems to work. But will it replace old-fashioned TNT in the open? Would like to see what the bang for the buck is (pun intended).
Quote from: kernals12 on April 29, 2023, 11:02:58 PM
This is pretty cool. They can move rock using rapidly expanding plasma rather than dynamite. The advantage is that it is far less risky to people and property nearby.
Plasma is a funny word here. Well, whatever it takes to sell...
Alumothery as a (very) slow explosive. I bet efficiency suck, but may be offset by fewer regulatory hurdles.
Termite was long used for rail welding, I wonder if that is still the case?
Quote from: kalvado on April 30, 2023, 09:06:40 AM
Termite was long used for rail welding, I wonder if that is still the case?
Indeed, thermite is still used heavily in the railroad industry. Other forms of welding can cause significant damage to certain types of track circuits. Not only did we use thermite for welding sections of rail together, we welded bond wires across bolted jointed and sometimes bonded track circuit wires to the rail (we usually used punch-pin couplers). But the most interesting use was for welding ground wires and lightning protection to metal structures. For those of us in railway signalling, thermit welding techniques were most effective for creating a strong metallic bond between dissimilar metals. (We had to be careful not to "bond" close to certain metals that would cause ionic corrosion).
The earthen base of a roadway needs time to "settle" because freshly deposited materials will compress under their own weight over time. We can accelerate the process somewhat by using compaction, but there will still be some settling. And settling leads to an uneven surface, so one would never be able to plow through a new terrain path and immediately slap pavement on it and expect it to hold up.
One sees this settling phenomenon all the time on newer roads. You'll be going along on a nice new highway that's maybe only 2-3 years old and suddenly, there's an elongated dip in the road, usually over a culvert or at a bridge abutment. That comes from not allowing enough time for the material in the subgrade to settle before paving. The last segment of I-840 to be completed in Tennessee was lousy with these, as an example. (Might still be, haven't been that way in a couple years.)
For that reason, this super-retro magazine concept would never be a good solution for building roads for reasons completely apart from the crazy logistics it would involve.
Which, by the way, why are they supplying it by helicopter? It's building a goddamn road behind it, so why wouldn't the raw materials and fuel be delivered by truck?
Quote from: triplemultiplex on May 02, 2023, 10:43:06 AM
The earthen base of a roadway needs time to "settle" because freshly deposited materials will compress under their own weight over time. We can accelerate the process somewhat by using compaction, but there will still be some settling. And settling leads to an uneven surface, so one would never be able to plow through a new terrain path and immediately slap pavement on it and expect it to hold up.
One sees this settling phenomenon all the time on newer roads. You'll be going along on a nice new highway that's maybe only 2-3 years old and suddenly, there's an elongated dip in the road, usually over a culvert or at a bridge abutment. That comes from not allowing enough time for the material in the subgrade to settle before paving. The last segment of I-840 to be completed in Tennessee was lousy with these, as an example. (Might still be, haven't been that way in a couple years.)
For that reason, this super-retro magazine concept would never be a good solution for building roads for reasons completely apart from the crazy logistics it would involve.
Which, by the way, why are they supplying it by helicopter? It's building a goddamn road behind it, so why wouldn't the raw materials and fuel be delivered by truck?
I can see some exclusions. Going down to rock base - either with thin soil level, or no soil (if we bring up Mars) may reduce settling by a lot. I wonder if some aggressive compacting - ultrasonic, for example, may also be used.
Permafrost heat transferring bases is another interesting case.
Then there may be something about weak soils, where it's almost a floating bridge - not sure how many such roads are actually there, but I heard about the concept.
Did you guys know that you can build roads out of precast concrete modules (https://www.forconstructionpros.com/concrete/equipment-products/press-release/12316631/california-building-largest-precastslab-concrete-highway-in-north-america-on-i210)? I sure as hell didn't. It's much faster than conventional methods. Though I do wonder how they handle it when the roadway isn't perfectly straight.
Quote from: kernals12 on May 09, 2023, 11:56:21 PM
Did you guys know that you can build roads out of precast concrete modules (https://www.forconstructionpros.com/concrete/equipment-products/press-release/12316631/california-building-largest-precastslab-concrete-highway-in-north-america-on-i210)? I sure as hell didn't. It's much faster than conventional methods. Though I do wonder how they handle it when the roadway isn't perfectly straight.
To begin with, this is reconstruction - not a green field construction. Makes quite a difference.
And still not the most impressive example of such kind of work
(https://www.navjot-singh.com/uploads/3/1/7/4/3174873/9630477_orig.jpg)
Quote from: kalvado on May 10, 2023, 04:45:19 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on May 09, 2023, 11:56:21 PM
Did you guys know that you can build roads out of precast concrete modules (https://www.forconstructionpros.com/concrete/equipment-products/press-release/12316631/california-building-largest-precastslab-concrete-highway-in-north-america-on-i210)? I sure as hell didn't. It's much faster than conventional methods. Though I do wonder how they handle it when the roadway isn't perfectly straight.
To begin with, this is reconstruction - not a green field construction. Makes quite a difference.
And still not the most impressive example of such kind of work
(https://www.navjot-singh.com/uploads/3/1/7/4/3174873/9630477_orig.jpg)
Is that AI rendered?
Quote from: kernals12 on May 09, 2023, 11:56:21 PM
Did you guys know that you can build roads out of precast concrete modules (https://www.forconstructionpros.com/concrete/equipment-products/press-release/12316631/california-building-largest-precastslab-concrete-highway-in-north-america-on-i210)? I sure as hell didn't. It's much faster than conventional methods. Though I do wonder how they handle it when the roadway isn't perfectly straight.
Based on the article's date, it's not really new technology, and based on NJDOT's seminar ( https://www.njdottechtransfer.net/2020/06/11/lunchtime-tech-talk-webinar-evaluation-precast-concrete_systems/ ) and report ( https://dspace.njstatelib.org/bitstream/handle/10929/56560/t7642019g.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1 ), at least 17 states are using precast concrete slabs. NJ's reports reviewed several states experiences and policies, including California's.
I didn't read thru the reports in depth, but to very briefly summarize: A big benefit is why CA did what they did: Minimize lane closures. When permanently closing a lane during a construction project isn't an option, allowing nighttime closures to rip out concrete slabs and place a new slab in while permitting traffic to have full access to the highway during the day is huge. One of the bigger downsides is cost.
CA's project is probably one of the larger ones. I think NJ has done a lot of smaller PCP slab projects, such as here where they've replaced several feet around older concrete joints. https://goo.gl/maps/ZxerE5PKNtLXE8Uu9
Quote from: kernals12 on May 10, 2023, 07:33:28 PM
Quote from: kalvado on May 10, 2023, 04:45:19 AM
Quote from: kernals12 on May 09, 2023, 11:56:21 PM
Did you guys know that you can build roads out of precast concrete modules (https://www.forconstructionpros.com/concrete/equipment-products/press-release/12316631/california-building-largest-precastslab-concrete-highway-in-north-america-on-i210)? I sure as hell didn't. It's much faster than conventional methods. Though I do wonder how they handle it when the roadway isn't perfectly straight.
To begin with, this is reconstruction - not a green field construction. Makes quite a difference.
And still not the most impressive example of such kind of work
(https://www.navjot-singh.com/uploads/3/1/7/4/3174873/9630477_orig.jpg)
Is that AI rendered?
Perfectly real shot.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on May 10, 2023, 07:58:30 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on May 09, 2023, 11:56:21 PM
Did you guys know that you can build roads out of precast concrete modules (https://www.forconstructionpros.com/concrete/equipment-products/press-release/12316631/california-building-largest-precastslab-concrete-highway-in-north-america-on-i210)? I sure as hell didn't. It's much faster than conventional methods. Though I do wonder how they handle it when the roadway isn't perfectly straight.
Based on the article's date, it's not really new technology, and based on NJDOT's seminar ( https://www.njdottechtransfer.net/2020/06/11/lunchtime-tech-talk-webinar-evaluation-precast-concrete_systems/ ) and report ( https://dspace.njstatelib.org/bitstream/handle/10929/56560/t7642019g.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1 ), at least 17 states are using precast concrete slabs. NJ's reports reviewed several states experiences and policies, including California's.
I didn't read thru the reports in depth, but to very briefly summarize: A big benefit is why CA did what they did: Minimize lane closures. When permanently closing a lane during a construction project isn't an option, allowing nighttime closures to rip out concrete slabs and place a new slab in while permitting traffic to have full access to the highway during the day is huge. One of the bigger downsides is cost.
CA's project is probably one of the larger ones. I think NJ has done a lot of smaller PCP slab projects, such as here where they've replaced several feet around older concrete joints. https://goo.gl/maps/ZxerE5PKNtLXE8Uu9
Perhaps in the future they'll have ones made of lightweight carbon fiber that can be installed without expensive machinery
Quote from: kernals12 on May 11, 2023, 11:07:04 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on May 10, 2023, 07:58:30 PM
Quote from: kernals12 on May 09, 2023, 11:56:21 PM
Did you guys know that you can build roads out of precast concrete modules (https://www.forconstructionpros.com/concrete/equipment-products/press-release/12316631/california-building-largest-precastslab-concrete-highway-in-north-america-on-i210)? I sure as hell didn't. It's much faster than conventional methods. Though I do wonder how they handle it when the roadway isn't perfectly straight.
Based on the article's date, it's not really new technology, and based on NJDOT's seminar ( https://www.njdottechtransfer.net/2020/06/11/lunchtime-tech-talk-webinar-evaluation-precast-concrete_systems/ ) and report ( https://dspace.njstatelib.org/bitstream/handle/10929/56560/t7642019g.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1 ), at least 17 states are using precast concrete slabs. NJ's reports reviewed several states experiences and policies, including California's.
I didn't read thru the reports in depth, but to very briefly summarize: A big benefit is why CA did what they did: Minimize lane closures. When permanently closing a lane during a construction project isn't an option, allowing nighttime closures to rip out concrete slabs and place a new slab in while permitting traffic to have full access to the highway during the day is huge. One of the bigger downsides is cost.
CA's project is probably one of the larger ones. I think NJ has done a lot of smaller PCP slab projects, such as here where they've replaced several feet around older concrete joints. https://goo.gl/maps/ZxerE5PKNtLXE8Uu9
Perhaps in the future they'll have ones made of lightweight carbon fiber that can be installed without expensive machinery
Is there enough oil in the world to make all that plastic?
My hometown HS moved the graduation walk with seniors' names embossed in the segments from the old school to the new school some time in the 1990s.
I always wondered ever since then why they can't just level out concrete sidewalks and roads the same way for a hella lot less money.