The Case For Concrete Roads

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gzt

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#317849 20-Nov-2024 21:02

Transport Minister Simeon Brown launched "The Case For Concrete Roads" report this morning commissioned by Concrete New Zealand and apparently an update of several previous reports:

Scoop: The Case for Concrete Roads was launched this morning by Transport Minister Simeon Brown. The report says concrete roads are on average 17 per cent cheaper over whole-of-life, reduce embodied carbon in roading and significantly reduce the cost and frequency of road maintenance. The report by consultancy Infometrics, commissioned by Concrete New Zealand, builds on reports from 2013, 2018 and 2020, to present a compelling case for the use of concrete in roading.

There is a pilot RCC Roller Compacted Concrete road you can try out on a section of Hamilton's Arthur Porter Drive finished earlier this year.

I'm guessing a concrete surface will initially use more sand than an asphalt surface. Initially that may mean an increase in unpopular sand mining.

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#3311194 20-Nov-2024 21:27

i'll have to ask a mate as hes actually built them before (overseas).

but afaik the real problem is it really only works for roads that are final. roads that end up getting widened, rearranged, expanding etc, then all the advantages are lost.

its a lot like tarseal vers gravel. tarseal needs less maintenance but when it needs work done on it, its hugely expensive.

nzkc

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#3311215 20-Nov-2024 22:28

And I stopped being interested at "commissioned by Concrete New Zealand". Too much bias here.

gzt

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#3311223 20-Nov-2024 23:08

I eventually found the full report. 14 pages and no real technical detail in that one:

https://cdn.ymaws.com/concretenz.org.nz/resource/resmgr/docs/cnz/c_concrete_road_2024_full.pdf

The preceding reports are currently unavailable with a webservice error.

mattwnz

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#3311225 20-Nov-2024 23:48

Well they did increase the truck weight by up to 20% when they were last in, which seems to have resulted in extra wear and damage to the roads. You can often see ruts in worn roads now due to truck tyres which I don't recall ever seeing before. Concrete may fix that but

Bung

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#3311235 21-Nov-2024 07:05

This is from an Australian thread on concrete roads

"They just plain suck when they get old. They were all made in sections (to stop cracking), but because they were made this way, the sections shift and move over time, and every single join ends up being a bump."

In NZ the land itself does enough moving maybe an asphalt road is more forgiving.

johno1234

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#3311239 21-Nov-2024 07:21

I was surprised to see a section of Meadowbank Rd in Auckland replaced with concrete but you wouldn’t know because the surface was covered with a layer of asphalt.

rb99

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#3311242 21-Nov-2024 08:09

I'd imagine the report doesn't mention how much concrete production contributes to CO2 emissions.

Save on maintenance, reduce truck weights by 20%, might even get a bit more on the railways, but then thats why the roading industry 'donates' to politicians I suppose, to prevent such madness...

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cddt

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#3311244 21-Nov-2024 08:28

mattwnz:

Well they did increase the truck weight by up to 20% when they were last in, which seems to have resulted in extra wear and damage to the roads. You can often see ruts in worn roads now due to truck tyres which I don't recall ever seeing before. Concrete may fix that but

"The damage done to roads is not directly equivalent to the extra weight of a vehicle on it, but rather equates to what is known as the 'Fourth Power Rule'. As the weight on the road from each axle of a truck increases, the amount of damage done to the road increases by the fourth power. This means that a 20% increase in axle weight results in more than double the road damage."

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tehgerbil

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#3311248 21-Nov-2024 08:46

My experience of (what I believe was) driving on concrete roads in Philadelphia was reasonably unpleasant, particularly in the wet.

Whilst driving at speed on their motorways the vehicle is quite unpleasant to ride in being continually subjected to a BaDum BaDum BaDum BaDum from the gaps in the sections of concrete and this in turn I daresay will cause high sustained wear on shock absorbers and tyres.

This may be different engineer specifications, but they also sank unevenly and caused significant shallow pooling of rainwater which also contributed to visibility issues locating lane divider markings, increased risk of hydroplaning etc.

Speaking of hydroplaning, as the concrete was grey it was also harder to see still pools of water on the road against a grey sky.

Again, IF this was indicative of concrete roads then yeah.. Nah, I'll stick with our asphalt any day of the week.

Obraik

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#3311368 21-Nov-2024 11:29

I didn't really enjoy the constant "thump thump thump" driving over the joins of each concrete segment on US highways when I've visited. It's like driving over a bridge, but for the whole journey.

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Senecio

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#3311387 21-Nov-2024 12:10

Concrete roads are generally noisier than correctly laid asphalt roads, especially at motorway speeds. And I don’t mean from within the cars but the surrounding areas. Sections of the M1 from Yatala to the Gold Coast in Queensland were built using concrete and they spent the next 10 years trying to mitigate noise complaints from the nearby suburbs.

Sidestep

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#3311443 21-Nov-2024 14:16

Bung:

This is from an Australian thread on concrete roads

"They just plain suck when they get old. They were all made in sections (to stop cracking), but because they were made this way, the sections shift and move over time, and every single join ends up being a bump."

In NZ the land itself does enough moving maybe an asphalt road is more forgiving.

Yep, once the slabs start to get out of alignment they really suck.

I drove Hotshots on the US Interstates for a few years.
Most of I-90 was pretty bad, and in particular I-94 from Minneapolis across North Dakota into Montana was so bad the constant pounding caused structural damage (stress fractures) to the frames of my brand-new Dodge trucks.

Daimler-Chrysler refused to repair/replace them under warranty as they considered driving loaded truck/trailers at highway speeds on those roads "abuse"

I can't imagine how much worse they'd end up with New Zealand's ever-moving geology.

mattwnz

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#3311444 21-Nov-2024 14:19

Senecio:

Concrete roads are generally noisier than correctly laid asphalt roads, especially at motorway speeds. And I don’t mean from within the cars but the surrounding areas. Sections of the M1 from Yatala to the Gold Coast in Queensland were built using concrete and they spent the next 10 years trying to mitigate noise complaints from the nearby suburbs.

I recall hearing something about some elevated parts of a new road in NZ that is probably built from concrete getting a lot of noise complaints from neighboring properties. Bridges are noisy

elpenguino

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#3311452 21-Nov-2024 14:38

Germany uses concrete for some sections of autobahn. I can imagine they'll make the material work. At what cost though , is the question.

From memory they use much longer sections than they used to - I went on one of the old stretches in the former DDR and the sections were only 3-4 seconds long

I think one of the benefits/drawbacks of asphalt is it's easier to patch up a little hole without having to attend to a whole stretch.

Sounds like a benefit but it can lead to a patchwork of crumbling temporary repairs.

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MadEngineer

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#3311468 21-Nov-2024 15:27

They’re bloody horrible. The concrete gets laid in sections so as to allow for movement and movement is what you get. Then driving over it sounds like you’re in a train. Imagine driving over a bridge where you get that repeated thud-thud, thud-thud…. thud-thud, thud-thud noise but it goes on forever.

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