Introduction
I did not get to write a lot in the May newsletter because I was spending the time I had available updating a number of pages. 
Regular visitors to the website will have been aware of this through the Updates Page. I am slowly replacing all the .gif images with .jpg images so the the pages will load faster, and at the same time updating the text if I have something extra to add.
One of the main compliments I receive relating to the site is the speed at which the pages will load, even for none broadband users, and then I am told they find the information useful. 
This month I will be providing a few links further down the page so that engineers and engineering technicians may access them and form their own opinions as to what is happening to highways maintenance in the UK. 

( Note - It appears the links to the AIA website may be experiencing difficulty, I have checked the links they were correct at the time of creating this web page. )

"Editor's Choice"
But before I move on to actual content I must make reference to the fact that I felt it quite an achievement to be included in the "Editor's Choice" of websites in the May copy of Civil Engineering. 
I hope the very many extra people who visited the site as a result of this recommendation were not disappointed.  
I also appreciate the promotion suggested in the site description, but in fact I am a Senior Technician and not an Engineer as described, I do not wish to imply I am anything other than what I am.
As I have indicated in my Homepage, I have just been around for a long while, involved mainly in a "hands on" manner with the technical aspects of highways maintenance and construction, and because I have remained in the same area for all of these years most of the roads I travel over are "trials" to me, and it gives me a pretty good idea of what works and what does not work.
And just to anticipate the "new" materials scenario, most of the "new" materials are not really that new, they just have different names (and many of them) for similar generic aggregate and bitumen formulations that have been around for many years. 

Keeping up to date via the "Web"

This section will be mainly of benefit to the UK reader, but others who have an interest in the UK highways industry may find it useful.
Recently there have been two surveys published which are said to reflect the condition of the UK road network road.
The Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey,
and,
The National Road Maintenance Condition Survey (NRMCS)

The ALARM survey is compiled by the Asphalt Industry Alliance from questionnaires returned from local authorities, and this is all explained in the report. In my opinion this survey is a "lobbying" report prepared by the "big" players in the market to secure extra funding for highways maintenance, and the AIA to its credit declares that it has a financial interest in extra money being made available by central and local government.
However this does not deter from the fact that this report raises some very pertinent issues about where the money goes that has been awarded by central government for local highway maintenance, not always on roads.
Where I would take issue with the AIA is the type of product they would like engineers and engineering technicians to spend this extra money on, if we ever get our hands on it, but that is another topic not addressed here.

The NRMCS survey is an official survey that is conducted by local authorities with the recorded data being processed centrally to produce the report, again it is all fully explained in the document.
The link I have included is to a site which contains the key results of the report, and the facility to download the full survey findings.
 
I believe both these reports are well worth a browse, but you will need more than five minutes.

And There's More

It appears, to me anyway, that the Highways Agency are not too sure on what policy to adopt with regard to specifying the construction and maintenance of the motorway and trunk road network of the UK.
So, they have placed a "consultation" document on the internet inviting proposals from those involved in the industry. 
It suggests performance specifications may be the preferred option, but nobody seems too sure how to specify or test for performance. In the course of my browsing I noticed such phrases as whole life guarantees but I did not spot any reference as to how long "life" was.  
A  background on this thinking and a copy of the document can be obtained from the Highways Agency website.
I may be wrong, but it appears one option is to remove reference to the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges, and the  Specification for Highway Works from future contracts entirely and just to rely on the performance of whatever design, product or process is chosen by the consultant/contractor consortium.
My interpretation of this is that we are removing the "rules" books. I personally would not want to work in an industry where there are no rules, perhaps new rules will be introduced.
I only have a few years left before retirement but I am quite happy to be employed by an organisation  looking after part of the 95% of the road network that is not under the authority of the Highways Agency.
It is probably the case that the Highways Agency have no other option than to adopt this policy because the strength and depth of its engineering capability has been severely depleted over many years of cost cutting exercises by successive governments. But I have to say I find this new approach to highway specifying a sad and worrying reflection on the importance, or lack of it,  placed on comprehensive "in house" road engineering knowledge.
I really do not know when this item was placed on the internet because I only became aware of it about two weeks ago, but if you have any comments you had better be quick because I have only just noticed that the closing date for your response is the sixth of June 2003, some of you may already be too late.
The only comment I would make is that if commercial consortia of whatever type persuade the Highways Agency to allow them full reign in the manner they construct and maintain the motorway and trunk road network, they MUST also take on ALL responsibility, and liability, for whatever problems result from their empowerment.

I just hope they get the railway network fixed pretty quickly, we may need it sooner than people think.

Using Plastic "waste" in Hot Mix Bituminous Recycling

In my wanderings around the web I am finding a considerable amount of information relating to the use of reclaimed plastic materials being recycled in the production of bitumen based materials used in road pavement construction and maintenance.  Most of this information is related to the research and production of "new" bituminous mixtures by the larger companies, and is excellent news. However with the development of a new breed of small mobile "remixing" plants, an example is shown in the photographs,

it is now possible for local authorities and the smaller contractor to be part of this initiative. A possibility being the addition of an appropriate amount of a suitable reclaimed "plastic" being used as the rejuvenator instead of bitumen. It may in the future, after trials and testing, be possible to replace a larger part of the the bitumen component, and/or the aggregate component to bring about further environmental benefits and reductions in cost.  It is a fact that bitumen prices are rising at an alarming rate while the price of reclaimed plastic falls as government policy decrees more and more products shall be reclaimed and not go to landfill. I am not going to do the work for you, but the two "plastics" that seem to offer the most potential are, low density polyethylene, LDPE, (e.g. carrier bags, fertiliser sacks and agricultural poly-tunnels, etc.),  and  high density polyethylene, HDPE, (e.g. drinks and yogurt containers, shampoo and bleach bottles, etc.).

It is interesting to note that some of the "plastics" available, have been, and still are in some cases used as bitumen modifiers, so what I suggest is a practical proposal. 
Information you will find on the web will support the view that the addition of LDPE and HDPE will improve the engineering properties of bituminous mixtures.
From what I have read there are no environmental considerations in using these types of plastic providing normal mixing temperatures are employed, i.e. below 180 degrees centigrade, but you will need to confirm that for yourselves.
Anyone entering in to this area of recycling will most definitely need the backup of a knowledgeable Materials Engineer and laboratory testing, and perhaps a link with a suitable university or college.
However there is already good information on the web that you can access by using a good search engine and appropriate key words. 
The search engine I prefer for technical searches is www.google.com , and you do need to play around with the combination of words, and here are a few key words to start you off should you be interested,
bitumen, recycle, remix, asphalt, plastiphalt, low density polyethylene, ldpe, high density polyethylene, hdpe, road, bituminous mixture, macadam, etc.
If you have an interest in this subject and an an hour to spend on the internet I think you will be well rewarded with ideas and information.
I will point you in the direction of just one web page to start your quest, this page is to be found on the website of the Indian Centre for Plastics in our Environment, and demonstrates the work that is possible in this type of plastics recycling.
As I have said I am not going to do the work for you, so please, no emails.
But I will leave you with an interesting thought, we had tar as a bye product, some would say a waste product of the "town gas" industry, when every town had a gas-works processing coal to produce "town gas".
Tar, although it would probably no longer be allowed to be used, gave us tarmac.
With the advent of the oil industry, what was left after the refining process was bitumen, and bitumen derived from certain crude oil stocks gives road engineers an excellent road building material, but some would say it could be called a waste product of the oil refining process.
And really the word tarmac should have been replaced by the more correct term bitmac by now, as very little if any  tar is currently used in bituminous mixtures.
We are now in the situation where we have a great deal of waste plastic, that is also thermoplastic in nature, the characteristic that makes tar and bitumen so useful as a road building medium, so who knows, in a few years we might all be using "plastimac".  

Motto of the Month

"The world is a comedy to those that think, and a tragedy to those that feel."