The company ALI Excavation has just completed, for the Ministry of Transportation of Quebec (MTQ), a project of nearly 8 kilometers of brand new recycled pavement on a large segment of Route 132 crossing the municipalities, mainly, of Saint-Anicet and Sainte -Barbe in Montérégie.
Although it is recycled asphalt, it is not to be assumed that the product is not of the highest quality. Marc-André Loiselle, president of the company Ali Excavation specifies that this contract of nearly $ 2.5M will give this sector a road perfectly adapted to the demands of the environment and to the extreme climatic conditions experienced by Quebec and that the problem of the quality and durability of Quebec’s roads could find its solution in the use of this cold recycling technology.
“Without being too presumptuous, we could easily say that this technology could practically double the life of our roads if we used it more, not only in Montérégie, but throughout Quebec, says Mr. Loiselle. In addition to correcting the multiple degradations of pavements such as rutting, cracks and interface separation, cold recycling of asphalt would make it possible to produce not only a more sustainable pavement, but a road with ecological advantages linked to the technique.”
Expert work
The stages of the process consist in removing a layer of 100 millimeters on a pavement previously coated with a thin layer of cement which gives stability to the pavement segment and remixing it all, on site, while injecting it simultaneously with water (PTI: pumped from a lake near the site) and a bitumen emulsion thanks to a train of road equipment, to finally create the cold recycled product, which will then be compacted with powerful compaction rollers.
More expensive, about 25% than the conventional method, this excess cost is more than offset by a significantly longer payback period, 20 years compared to 10 to 12 years usually.
“With this technique applied everywhere in Quebec, there is every reason to think that we could finally complete the loop of the rehabilitation of national roads throughout the territory, says Mr. Loiselle. What makes this technique even more extraordinary is that it can be repeated in the same place over and over again in good time for eco-friendly and sustainable roads.”
