Photocatalytic technologies offer a unique benefit to road materials due to their potential to support depollution reactions of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and their versatility. The aims of this research were to investigate the wear resistance of photocatalytic asphalt slabs under repeated loads and to quantify the effect of contaminants such as dirt (fine particles), salt (sodium chloride) and deicing solution (salt plus water) on photocatalytic effectiveness. Accelerated loading tests (wheel tracking test) and skid resistance (British pendulum test) allowed the characterization of slab behavior over different steps of cycles. A specific laboratory setup was adopted to measure the reduction in concentration of pollutants as nitrogen oxide in accordance with European standards. Results showed a decrease over progressive load cycles in depolluting effectiveness and skid resistance of photocatalytic slabs, and deicing solution had the largest negative effect. The negative impact was largely dependent on t...

The use of Electric Vehicles (EV) seems to be a promising solution to achieve a sustainable road transport system. Among the contactless dynamic vehicle charging technologies, the use of Charging Units (CUs)—cement concrete box—embedded into the road pavement seems to be a favorable option. The available scientific papers related to the structural effects of embedding CUs in road pavements consider the CU as a solid box, even if a cavity is needed for the electrical technologies’ accommodation. This is why the current research is aimed at studying electrified roads (e-road) with different CU cavity shapes and dimensions. In detail, pavement structural responses are investigated, as a first step, adopting a Finite Element Model (FEM), and, as a second step, the long-term performances (fatigue cracking/rutting proneness) are evaluated. The study is divided into two phases: the theoretical fatigue/rutting assessment, which allows to calculate the critical load repetitions leading to pavement failure, and an urban case study with the goals of both assessing the theoretical results and computing fatigue/rutting performance with real scale traffic conditions. The outcomes demonstrate that CUs can be used with no significant impacts on the long-term road pavement structural performance, laying the foundation for a future upgrading of the existing urban road networks.

The overall quality and durability of asphalt pavements mainly depends on its ‘design’, which generally includes materials selection, mix design, structural (and functional) design. In the ‘design’ phase, less attention is generally given to the definition of the construction procedures, which somehow seem to assume a secondary importance. The selection of the most suitable rollers and their use (number of passes, vibration settings) is rarely defined before the job, and the definitive choice often depends on the contractor's available equipments and on the experience of the staff. This paper presents the result of a full-scale experimental study carried out to test the effects of different compaction procedures on the final degree of compaction of different asphalt mixes. After introducing a new variable able to represent the compaction action carried out by the roller, a relation was identified which allows to preliminary evaluate the degree of compaction of a layer when a compaction procedure is defined.