Project Summary

The Seal-It project will create the first proof-of-principle prototype of a test-rig for quantitatively assessing the performance of road crack sealing materials and methodologies.

Project Achievements

Activities Through this project, an innovative testing facility containing a custom-made rig in a climate/temperature-controlled was built to deliver more objective, quantitative assessments of crack repair qualities. Tests were successfully completed and showed the high dependency of the ultimate stress from the temperature. Moreover, tests on the repaired samples showed that the repaired crack is the last point of failure in the sample.

Conclusions

Seal-it achieved its goal of designing and manufacturing a tensile testing machine capable also of thermal cycling for temperature-controlled static and fatigue tests on asphalt samples. This advanced testing rig will allow Robotiz3d to improve its repair technology via continuous assessment of the structural performances of the cracked slab of asphalt once repaired.

Next Steps

Tests with more specimens and with different combinations of repair materials and processes are initially needed to fully assess the performance and reliability of the Seal-it platform. Once such tests are completed, tests with real-world specimens coming from the existing roads will allow this technology to climb the TRL scale and finally meet the specification of a fully-fledged commercial product. We believe that only relatively minor changes will be needed in the machinery itself to go from the current TRL4 to full commercialisation.

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