American Rural HighwaysAgg, T. R. (Thomas Radford)
Science
American Rural Highways
Agg, T. R. (Thomas Radford)
Roads -- United States
=Maintenance.=--Even under favorable conditions as regards kind and
amount of traffic the macadam road requires constant maintenance. The
first effect of traffic will be to brush away the fine materials used
for bonding the surface, thus exposing the larger stones in such a way
that they are rather easily loosened and removed from the surface by
wheels and the hoofs of animals. This finer material must be replaced
as fast as it is removed so as to protect the surface. Either stone
dust or clayey sand may be used, but clay if used alone is likely to
be sticky when wet and prove to be worse than the condition it was
expected to correct. In time, ruts and depressions will appear, either
as the gradual effect of wear, which will inevitably effect some
portions of the surface more than others, or on account of subsidence
of the foundation. Uneven places are repaired by first loosening the
stone, then restoring the cross section by adding new material and
tamping or rolling it in place.
If a bituminous coating has been applied, it will eventually peel off
in places and these places must be recoated as soon as practicable.
Eventually the surface will be worn to such an extent that an entirely
new wearing surface must be added. This is done by loosening the
entire surface to a depth of 3 or 4 inches and then adding a new layer
of broken stone. The loosening is sometimes accomplished by means of
heavy spikes inserted in the roller wheels, and at others by means of
a special tool known as a scarifier.
The new surface is placed and rolled in precisely the same manner as
the wearing surface of the original construction, but the layer may
not be as thick as the original wearing course. A new course will not
bond to the old surface unless the old macadam has been thoroughly
broken up first.
=Characteristics.=--The water-bound macadam is a dusty, somewhat rough
surface of low durability for rubber tired vehicles. It has long been
the standard rural highway for steel tired vehicles, but cannot carry
any considerable amount of motor traffic. It is easily repaired. When
finished with a bituminous surface its durability is greatly increased
and the dust is eliminated. It does not seem to be sufficiently rigid
for truck traffic, unless placed on exceptionally good foundation.
CHAPTER VIII
CEMENT CONCRETE ROADS
The cement concrete road is one of the later developments in highway
construction, but the type has had sufficient use to show that it is
one of the satisfactory types for heavy mixed traffic, and, where the
proper materials are available, it is one of the economical types of
construction.
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