Surface dressing is and will continue to be the most extensively used and economical road maintenance technique in Ireland. The vast majority of the country's rural roads are treated with surface dressing at varying intervals, depending on road classification, traffic levels and, of course, available funding for road maintenance. As part of an ongoing evaluation of the process, the Irish Branch of the Institute of Asphalt Technology set up a Surface Dressing Sub-committee with a view to drafting a comprehensive set of guidelines. These are now in their Second Edition and cover all aspects of surface dressing, including more recent developments such as the use of polymer modified binders, slot-jet spray bars, and multiple layer dressings. The guidelines also include recommendations for sealing unbound and cold-mix layers and surface dressing on macadam; a variety of techniques being offered to reflect current practice that works well in various counties. The variations in surface dressing practice that exist around the country are so wide that no design method could incorporate them all, but the method presented here has been checked against what has actually been successful on a large number of sites. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E217100.
Samenvatting