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30 May 2016

Use High Friction Surfacing To Make Your Pavements Skid Resistant

By Margaret Murphy


Pavements can be given a surface treatment compiled of materials that are polish resistant, tough and attrition resistant aggregates that are attached to the surface through resin. This kind of surface treatment can be either cold or hot applied and has been enforced and used across world. Anti-skid surfaces may be accomplished by high friction surfacing. Essentially, it is applied so as to reduce the braking distance and add skid resistance.

The ability to reduce braking distance has the potential to lower accidents. This anti-skid treatment can be put at various points on the road such as road junctions, pedestrian crossings, and roundabouts, near traffic lights and on road stretches with higher accident rates. Development in various resins used to bind the aggregate to the surface has improved durability and performance. By adding this kind of treatment on the road services saves lives as well as money.

Apart from enhancing skid resistance on road surfaces, it can be used for traffic calming, lane delineating, decorative reasons and for bike paths. Surfacing can be made through either cold or hot application. The hot enforced binds the material onto the surface by adhesion because of the heat application as the cold applied get attached on the road surface by chemical bond.

Due to its anti-skid properties, this treatment can be done on road surfaces at different points. Common areas where it is normally used are such as horizontal curves and ramps, steep grades, bus stop points, intersection approaches, bridge decks and surfaces where icing is common. Such area often require higher friction making the anti-skidding treatment more ideal hence reducing accident rates. This is because this material is made such that it can achieve high tolerance to abrasion from vehicle tires. The material is also resilient to polishing or being smoothened.

Before the application of the abrasive resistant material, various precautions need to be met in order to achieve quality adhesion. First, the pavements need to be in good condition without cracking and scaling. For open graded surfaces, they can no longer act as open-graded after installation. They may require double layer application in order to achieve the adequate thickness for binding.

Some other requirements are that the pavement surfaces be clean and dry for the application. Surfaces that are made of concrete have to be shot-blasted before applying in order to achieve a better adhesion. Also, the surfaces have to be free of grease, oils, and the likes.

When the aggregates have been installed, the extra material should be removed from the new surfaces before opening up the pavement to be used again. This can be done effectively by using the power bloom and compressed by air. Extra sweeping can be done during the next few days to remove the loosen stones.

Installation of the anti-skidding material has many advantages other than being skid resistant. Unlike removing and replacing the existing pavement, installing the aggregate material is not an expensive undertaking. On the other hand, it can be performed virtually over any type of pavement and can be done during short closures such as 4 to 6 hours.




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