Shell for Businesses

Is Your Road At Risk?

The philosophy behind Shell Road Clinic is to provide solutions to the problems that you encounter in new road construction and the upgrading and rehabilitation of existing roads. We realize that the quality of raw materials, asphalt mix and pavement design, climatic conditions, traffic loading, and the actual road construction can determine the type and severity of pavement defects.

Shell Road Clinic offers solutions to treat and to enhance the health of the road. A supplementary dosage of premium bitumen will offer the new road with extended structure life. A therapeutic dosage of fit for purpose premium bitumen will offer existing roads with extended service life.

Shell Road Clinic’s group of bitumen and asphalt specialists will assist end users to select a fit for purpose bitumen for specific asphalt applications. Whether for new road construction or existing road maintenance, Shell Road Clinic provides technical expertise for all your needs to ensure that the road lasts longer.

Years of economic growth have resulted in an exponential increase in traffic density and changes in traffic patterns and loading configuration. These changes have led to the increase in stresses imposed on the road and must be taken into consideration when designing the pavement structure. Failure to do so will lead to severe pavement defects that will be expensive to rectify.

New roads that were designed to taking the above changes into consideration should perform as expected. Old roads that were designed based on previous traffic conditions and loadings might need to be upgraded. In specific locations where with special geometric needs, the pavement should be constructed in such a way that it needs to withstand high stress and high shear loading. There are also locations where fuel spillage is unavoidable and the pavement has seriously deteriorated. These unavoidable circumstances if not carefully treated will lead to pavement failures such as:

• Permanent deformation (rutting)
• Shoving
• Polishing
• Surface cracking due to binder aging
• Fatigue cracking
• Ravelling caused by diesel /fuel spillage

How to Reduce The Incidence of Road Defects

There are various options to reduce the incidence of road defects. However this depends on the type of defects, the causes of the defects and economic factors. In general, the treatment of road defects is divided into two areas, i.e. structural treatment and functional treatment.

Structural treatment generally refers to the increase in the strength or stiffness modulus of the pavement materials. One option is to use Shell Premium Bitumen, namely:

 

1. Shell Mexphalte Fuelsafe	PG 70
2. Shell Multiphalte	PG 76
3. Shell Cariphalte	PG 70
4. Shell Cariphalte	PG 76
5. Shell Cariphalte	PG 82
6. Shell Mexphalte- C	Coloured Bitumen

Another option is to use Shell Premium Bitumen in combination with special asphalt mixes.  These are asphalt mixes that exhibit enhanced engineering properties such as high stiffness modulus, good surface texture and reduced hydroplaning effect. The special asphalt mixtures that can be produced by using Shell Premium Bitumen are:

• Stone mastic asphalt (SMA)
• Porous Asphalt
• Novachip
• High Performance Dense Asphalt
• Colored asphalt
• Recycled asphalt

Where traffic accidents are a concern, methods can be implemented to help curb the accident rate.  Options that could be considered in this area are:

• Road demarcation by colour pavement.
• Increase skid resistance.
• Reduction in hydroplaning.

Road defects are distressing and unfortunately are inevitable. Shell Bitumen understands this constraint and has formed the Shell Road Clinic to assist bitumen users in prolonging the service life of their roads.  We are confident that our recommendations for road treatment will ease your problems.

So why wait? Consult your Shell specialists to protect your road from serious defects, today.

Shell Road Clinic (SRC) is a solution provider that is one of its kind to assist road bitumen users in selecting a fit for purpose bitumen in asphalt applications.