Energy Usage and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Pavement Preservation Processes for Asphalt Concrete Pavements

摘要

Use of pavement preservation treatments extends the remaining service life ofasphalt concrete pavements. These treatments typically include spray applied surfaceseals, thin overlays, crack treatments, chip seals, slurry seal/micro surfacing, surfacerecycling and others. Each preservation treatment reduces damaging effects of agingand deterioration of the pavement surface layer and helps protect the integrity of theunderlying pavement structure. If proactive preservation treatments are not used,pavements deteriorate more rapidly and require major rehabilitation with structuraloverlays or reconstruction much earlier.Every type of pavement strategy requires a series of energy using processes thatimpacts greenhouse gas emissions. Pavement rehabilitation and reconstruction requirelarge amounts of energy to obtain and process raw materials, transport, mix and applythe final product, while pavement preservation processes require much less energy toapply the final product to the road surface. This paper presents information on energyusage per unit area by comparing pavement life extensions of pavement preservationtreatments to typical design lives of reconstruction and rehabilitation techniques.Results show that pavement preservation treatments have significantly mitigationenergy use and greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional rehabilitation andreconstruction strategies.