Skip to main content

Newly constructed low-noise asphalt surface fails

Questions are being asked over the construction of a new section of the A1 autobahn in Germany. The highway stretch is being scrutinised due to surface failures and lies close to the city of Bremen but has been open for less than three months.
May 15, 2012 Read time: 1 min
Questions are being asked over the construction of a new section of the A1 autobahn in Germany.

The highway stretch is being scrutinised due to surface failures and lies close to the city of Bremen but has been open for less than three months.

The road carries around 70,000 vehicles/day and its construction was intended to reduce congestion between the port cities of Hamburg and Bremen. Numerous potholes are reported to have appeared in the surface of the highway. Given the recent severe weather, failures of older road surfaces are expected but these problems should not occur on links that have been so recently completed.

The investigations will focus on how water penetration into joints could have already caused the freeze-thaw process to break up the running surface or whether other problems such as material segregation or incorrect mix design could have been factors. The low-noise asphalt surface is crumbling at various points along the 73km section recently opened.

Related Content

  • Material feeder boosts paving job in South Africa
    December 14, 2017
    The use of a material feeder in a road paving job in South Africa has helped increase productivity and quality on the project. The contractor employed a Vögele MT 3000-2 Offset PowerFeeder to help optimise pavement quality, with the positive paving results having been confirmed by the University of Twente, Netherlands. This body monitored the project from a scientific perspective and its equipment included RoadScan, the innovative temperature-measurement system from Vögele. Using a material feeder can
  • Washington DC’s historic bridge replacement project
    June 11, 2019
    The project to replace a historic bridge in US capital Washington DC is providing major challenges for its builders - Mike Woof writes
  • New M90 surfacing in the UK gain praise
    January 8, 2013
    Early evaluation of surfacing work on the M90 at Rosyth – the first major application of Scotland’s new TS2010 specification – has earned positive praise. Transport Scotland’s determination to obtain pavement that is durable, long lasting and safe (especially in early life) is clearly apparent on the M90 just north of the Forth Road Bridge. Here surfacing has been carried out this spring to TS2010, a tough new specification designed to ensure thin surfacing pavements that work. And the initial prognosis is
  • Times they are a changing
    July 23, 2012
    Construction in China still appears to be on course for growth even with the gloomy economic outlook, as it enjoys "a strong budgets position." Patrick Smith reports One thing is certain in the current global economic climate: nothing is certain. And while China has not been unaffected by the economic events of recent months it has, according to Robert Zoellinck, president of the World Bank, a very strong current account and budgetary position. For some years, the nation has enjoyed double digit growth (the