Self Healing Aspalt on the A58

On this Blog we will give info on the test track with Self Healing Asphalt that is built on the A58 near Vlissingen in The Netherlands. The Asphalt is a special type of ZOAB (very porous aphalt concrete) containing small steelwool fibres. A known but serious problem with ZOAB is ravelling: stones at the surface coming off in time due to microcracking in the binder. The special ZOAB that is developed at Delft University (sponsored by AgentschapNL) can be heated with induction energy due to the fibres that are present which closes the microcracks and with that extends the service life of the road.

Friday, 2 September 2011

Microscopy and Nano-Indentation

To measure the properties of our self healing asphalt we are doing a lot of different tests. These tests are performed on the virgin material, the aged material (after oxidation) and on the the damaged and subsequently healed material (after applying the induction healing).
We are applying also some new techniques, like microscopy on thin slices of 30 micrometer thick. See the image on the left.
Another technique we are using is nano-indentation on polished samples (image on right side). The indents are performed using a berkovich tip and a cooling stage at a temperature of -20 C with our Agilent G200 Nano Indenter.
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