Asphalt Roads -How they are made and why they we need

I’m going to start this article talking about wheels even though this article isn’t about that. The wheel is overrated. Look at the history of wheels. People only started traveling on wheels seriously when roads were built. I mean try to take you bike for a spin in tall grass, it isn’t easy. Car makers lobbied in the 1940–1950 for highways, because a car by itself isn’t much, but a car with a rode is a form of transportation. So I wanted to know how do people make roads of rock, I wanted to know how are asphalt pavements made.

Asphalt pavements are a mixture of rocks also known as aggregates and liquid asphalt called asphalt cement. The aggregates give the pavement structure and strength to stand up to traffic, and the asphalt is the adhesive binder that bonds the aggregates together and holds them in place on the pavement. Asphalt cement is a natural substance that is sticky, able to stretch without breaking, and is waterproof. At air temperatures, asphalt cement is a very thick liquid. When heated, it becomes thinner and easier to use. Asphalt has been used since before Roman times as a glue and for water proofing. In a few places in the world, it’s naturally occurring, such as in a lake on the island of Trinidad and in the LaBrea “tar pits” in downtown Los Angeles.

Asphalt pavement have an unique elastic physical properties that allow it to flex and recover under traffic. Because of this, engineers call asphalt roads “flexible pavements,” and cement roads “rigid pavements.” Thanks to these roads, transportation has been transformed forever. If you overlay the years when highways were created and amount of cars you will see a big increase of cars in the years more roads were made. So how cool is your wheel now?