We’re building roads to withstand last century’s climate

[primalmatter]

And constant denial masquerading as "skepticism" is just willful ignorance run amok. Unless you can point to a post where you even mildly embrace the idea that climate change is not only happening but is human caused, you can take your place in line with the rest of the knuckle dragging science deniers.

Its caused by every living thing... your notion of what it is... well I have a feeling you would point at a car.

You champion causes you barely understand..

[cubby]

Its caused by every living thing... your notion of what it is... well I have a feeling you would point at a car.

But it's not - I'm not sure you even understand the issue we're discussing at this point.

You champion causes you barely understand..

Lol, ok. Why don't you give me some reading material to paruse to get my edumacation ramped up, mr science denier. I'm all ears - show me the documents/papers/evidence you have that backs your claim.

/in-before-he-replies-with-"you-wouldn/t-believe/understand-even-if-i-provided-you-with-your-request--why-bother?

[primalmatter]

Even if your skeptical of man made climate change, you gotta be pretty dense to deny that the climate change isn't happening at all or that it hasn't been abnormal.

What makes it adnormal?

It happened before without technology via the ice age. What makes me dense exactly? Not screaming like chicken little?

[Rasulis]

That just tells me the road builders were short sighted, or used cheap materials.

I am not a climate change denier. I am just saying that global warming is not going to suddenly change a 20 year road to 14.

You probably should invest some time on the basics of pavement design, or read up on some research papers on the effect of temperature on pavement sections lifecycle before making statement like that.

The study is based on examination of 800 roads throughout the continental U.S. Also, public work is a different animal than private construction. Quality, not cost, is the major driving force. If you think Caltrans will let a contractor use non-spec materials, you are dreaming.

[Shakadam]

Where I live we get extremely cold winter and some very hot days in summer, every spring, asphalt is demolished, raped by winter and they have to fill the holes and repair a lot of stuff.
Last year they started remaking an entire highway in concrete instead of asphalt, it seems much better so far.

Driving on concrete wears out tires much faster than driving on asphalt though.

[Sunseeker]

But it's not - I'm not sure you even understand the issue we're discussing at this point.

The irony of this point is that he's technically correct. It is caused by every living thing. There just happen to be 9+ billion gas guzzling, forest-plowing cow-farming humans on the planet. This is not the "intended use" of the product...er, planet.

[Endus]

That just tells me the road builders were short sighted, or used cheap materials.

I am not a climate change denier. I am just saying that global warming is not going to suddenly change a 20 year road to 14.

It isn't "sudden". It's been progressively getting worse over time, particularly over the last 50 years. You wouldn't necessarily notice when roads designed to last 20 years are lasting 18-19 rather than 20-21 years, but the wider that gap gets, the easier it is to notice. Hence this research confirming it. This isn't complicated.

Increasing freeze/thaw cycles wreaks havoc on pavement and mortar, and higher temperatures during summer peaks mean that friction wear is greater on pavement. It all adds up.

What makes it adnormal?

It happened before without technology via the ice age. What makes me dense exactly? Not screaming like chicken little?

That it's happening dozens of times faster than any "natural cycle", and that the warming spike has occurred near the peak of an interglacial warm period, where you'd expect to see tens of thousands of years of slow cooling instead, that's what's "abnormal".

If you're arguing that this is comparable to natural cycles, then you have aggressively and deliberately refused to look at any of the relevant data, to protect your state of willful and intentional ignorance. Or you're maliciously spreading disinformation, which honestly seems more likely.

[Endus]

It's the RATE at which it's happening, not that it's happening, that is the main issue.

It's kind of like trying to argue that a man-made avalanche isn't a big deal and doesn't pose any risk to anyone, because snow falls naturally from the sky sometimes.

Rate is kind of an important metric in this stuff.

Edit: Actually, that's not really a fair comparison. Since if we wanted to make a fair comparison, while naturally snow falls occasionally over time, if we wanted an analogue for global warming, we'd have to pick an avalanche that was going to keep continuously avalanching for centuries. Which obviously isn't what anyone thinks of when someone says "avalanche".

[Travis B]

I was told that where we're going, we don't need roads.

[PosPosPos]

I was told that where we're going, we don't need roads.

I was told that the alt-right, being paragons of personal responsibility, were going to individually build roads of their own among other societal infrastructure so they don't have to pay taxes.

[caervek]

I received an interesting article from Roads & Bridges magazine.

Are they in anyway affiliated with Walls and Fences magazine? XD

[Swalload]

Driving on concrete wears out tires much faster than driving on asphalt though.

I didn't know that. Why tho?
It sounds much smoother than asphalt, just by driving on it I would say it feels the exact opposite of what you said, but I don't know shit about asphalts and tires.

[Deleted]

I didn't know that. Why tho?
It sounds much smoother than asphalt, just by driving on it I would say it feels the exact opposite of what you said, but I don't know shit about asphalts and tires.

I really don't know, but my /guess/ is that they should be similar in tire wear, with perhaps concrete being a bit worse.

Intuitively, the rougher the texture and the harder the material, the higher the wear.

Texture: any material used for driving needs to be rough to some extent. Cars and trucks need to grip to the road, and not slide (specially when wet). The texture, I think, depends on the size of the rocks that the asphalt is composed of, and the finishing one applies to concrete. I suppose both materials are built so that they provide the necessary minimum grip for cars to not slide. They should be similar in this regard.

Hardness: both materials are an aggregate of rocks and something to glue them together (tar for asphalt, and cement for concrete). I suppose the main component of harness to be the rocks themselves on both materials, so it should be similar for both.
However, there's also the consideration that asphalt is flexible, while concrete isn't so much. I don't know how hardness is measured in composite materials. But if this is a factor, asphalt should come out being a bit softer.

There's that for my guess.
There's also other considerations. Concrete is more durable: it requires less maintenance. Frost has less of an impact on it.
But concrete is also more expensive. It's noisy when you drive on it; which is a nuisance, but I don't know if its contribution to city noise pollution is big. It's not easy to recycle (asphalt can simply be collected and heated to be laid down again). And manufacturing concrete produces a lot of greenhouse gases (global concrete production accounts for 5% of the gases involved in climate change, if I recall correctly).

I think there's some new materials in development. A friend brought rubber-concrete to my attention last year: it's essentially concrete made with rubber from old tires instead of (or in addition to) the rocks that usually go into concrete, making for a softer material. I suppose these must be exciting times for those working in the road industry ^^.

[Swalload]

I really don't know, but my /guess/ is that they should be similar in tire wear, with perhaps concrete being a bit worse.

Intuitively, the rougher the texture and the harder the material, the higher the wear.

Texture: any material used for driving needs to be rough to some extent. Cars and trucks need to grip to the road, and not slide (specially when wet). The texture, I think, depends on the size of the rocks that the asphalt is composed of, and the finishing one applies to concrete. I suppose both materials are built so that they provide the necessary minimum grip for cars to not slide. They should be similar in this regard.

Hardness: both materials are an aggregate of rocks and something to glue them together (tar for asphalt, and cement for concrete). I suppose the main component of harness to be the rocks themselves on both materials, so it should be similar for both.
However, there's also the consideration that asphalt is flexible, while concrete isn't so much. I don't know how hardness is measured in composite materials. But if this is a factor, asphalt should come out being a bit softer.

There's that for my guess.
There's also other considerations. Concrete is more durable: it requires less maintenance. But concrete is also more expensive. It's noisy when you drive on it; which is a nuisance, but I don't know if its contribution to city noise pollution is big. It's not easy to recycle (asphalt can simply be collected and heated to be laid down again). And manufacturing concrete produces a lot of greenhouse gases (global concrete production accounts for 5% of the gases involved in climate change, if I recall correctly).

I think there's some new materials in development. A friend brought rubber-concrete to my attention last year: it's essentially concrete made with rubber from old tires instead of (or in addition to) the rocks that usually go into concrete, making for a softer material. I suppose these must be exciting times for those working in the road industry ^^.

Makes sense.

Also tires rolling on old tires recycled into roads.
*Elton John comes in - IT'S THE CIIIIIIIRCLE OF LIFE*

[Rasulis]

I really don't know, but my /guess/ is that they should be similar in tire wear, with perhaps concrete being a bit worse.

Intuitively, the rougher the texture and the harder the material, the higher the wear.

Texture: any material used for driving needs to be rough to some extent. Cars and trucks need to grip to the road, and not slide (specially when wet). The texture, I think, depends on the size of the rocks that the asphalt is composed of, and the finishing one applies to concrete. I suppose both materials are built so that they provide the necessary minimum grip for cars to not slide. They should be similar in this regard.

Hardness: both materials are an aggregate of rocks and something to glue them together (tar for asphalt, and cement for concrete). I suppose the main component of harness to be the rocks themselves on both materials, so it should be similar for both.
However, there's also the consideration that asphalt is flexible, while concrete isn't so much. I don't know how hardness is measured in composite materials. But if this is a factor, asphalt should come out being a bit softer.

There's that for my guess.
There's also other considerations. Concrete is more durable: it requires less maintenance. Frost has less of an impact on it.
But concrete is also more expensive. It's noisy when you drive on it; which is a nuisance, but I don't know if its contribution to city noise pollution is big. It's not easy to recycle (asphalt can simply be collected and heated to be laid down again). And manufacturing concrete produces a lot of greenhouse gases (global concrete production accounts for 5% of the gases involved in climate change, if I recall correctly).

I think there's some new materials in development. A friend brought rubber-concrete to my attention last year: it's essentially concrete made with rubber from old tires instead of (or in addition to) the rocks that usually go into concrete, making for a softer material. I suppose these must be exciting times for those working in the road industry ^^.

Concrete vs. Asphalt. The eternal debate in transportation engineering.

It’s a tough call. The up front cost is higher for concrete. However, supposedly, the longer service life save money in the long run. On the other hand, you don’t actually replace an asphalt road at the end of its service life, you just grind part of the pavement down, and resurface the road with new asphalt.

Due to the crack control joints, concrete pavements generally provide a rougher drive. However, that can be alleviated by putting an inch of asphalt surface on top of the concrete.

Asphalt is more vulnerable to high temperature and freeze/thaw cycle. However, concrete is vulnerable to soil with high sulfate, chloride and bicarbonates concentrations. Also soil with low pH. These type of soils are not uncommon in agricultural area like the Midwest.

Concrete is more sensitive to deflection. Caltrans for example does not allow the use of concrete pavements on highly expansive subgrade, or subgrade with low R-value and/or CBR. Unless you either replace the soil or modify the soil (usually with lime treatment).

However, there are circumstances where concrete pavements are preferable. For example on street with steep to very steep gradient. Also, truck routes at border check points. Hundreds (even thousands) of stop and go heavy fully loaded trucks per day can stress any pavement sections. Concrete is the better choice for this.

In the end, both works fine. It boils down to the designer's preference.

[Aitch]

And constant denial masquerading as "skepticism" is just willful ignorance run amok. Unless you can point to a post where you even mildly embrace the idea that climate change is not only happening but is human caused, you can take your place in line with the rest of the knuckle dragging science deniers.

"Until you come up with a conclusion you should stop making hypotheses." lolwut

[Endus]

"Until you come up with a conclusion you should stop making hypotheses." lolwut

A hypothesis is proposed, tested, and evaluated.

If you're not testing and evaluating your hypothesis, and are not prepared to discard it after doing so with an open mind, then using the word "hypothesis" isn't really accurate.

Which is kind of why when scientists write papers, the hypothesis is part of the introduction, and they're only publishing because they have finished analysing the data and can state whether the hypothesis is supported or not.

[Aitch]

A hypothesis is proposed, tested, and evaluated.

If you're not testing and evaluating your hypothesis, and are not prepared to discard it after doing so with an open mind, then using the word "hypothesis" isn't really accurate.

Which is kind of why when scientists write papers, the hypothesis is part of the introduction, and they're only publishing because they have finished analysing the data and can state whether the hypothesis is supported or not.

I'm aware.

I was pointing out the inconsistency in the specific quote, because it seems to suggest that OP should accept a conclusion about the topic before he has the right to ask questions about the topic.

[primalmatter]

It isn't "sudden". It's been progressively getting worse over time, particularly over the last 50 years. You wouldn't necessarily notice when roads designed to last 20 years are lasting 18-19 rather than 20-21 years, but the wider that gap gets, the easier it is to notice. Hence this research confirming it. This isn't complicated.

Increasing freeze/thaw cycles wreaks havoc on pavement and mortar, and higher temperatures during summer peaks mean that friction wear is greater on pavement. It all adds up.



That it's happening dozens of times faster than any "natural cycle", and that the warming spike has occurred near the peak of an interglacial warm period, where you'd expect to see tens of thousands of years of slow cooling instead, that's what's "abnormal".

If you're arguing that this is comparable to natural cycles, then you have aggressively and deliberately refused to look at any of the relevant data, to protect your state of willful and intentional ignorance. Or you're maliciously spreading disinformation, which honestly seems more likely.

Its more of a cost vs benefit assessment.

We are talking about a sizable amount of money changing hands here for a rather dubious reason. I believe in conservation it makes sense long term regardless of the issue being discussed.

[D3thray]

Watching laymen squabble about material science is hilarious. Subjective experience does not make you an expert.