An innovative approach to evaluate the effectiveness of preventive maintenance technologies on road pavements: life cycle cost and performance analysis

Road pavements preventive maintenance is a planned strategy of cost-effective treatments applied to the road facility that preserves the initial investment, retards future deterioration and maintains the pavement performance over a certain desirable level. In this context, crack sealing and waterproofing are fundamental preventive maintenance actions to slow down the pavement deterioration. An innovative preventive treatment for diffuse cracking has been developed and tested by Politecnico di Milano researchers. It consists of a waterproofing interlayer membrane, made of a new composite material, to be cold-applied on the pavement surface, with or without milling the pre-existing layers. An additional external HMA layer is then required. The aim of the present work is the evaluation of the economic benefit for preventive maintenance actions, which include the use of the waterproofing membrane, for flexible pavements. In order to do this, a Life Cycle Cost and Performance Analysis, including initial construction, future maintenance intervention and user costs as well as benefits, is considered.

Il lavoro ha l'obiettivo di determinare l'efficacia di un nuovo intervento di manutenzione preventiva per pavimentazioni stradali di tipo flessibile, realizzato tramite l'applicazione di membrana bituminosa. L'analisi svolta considera costi (per agenzia e utenti) e benefici occorsi durante il ciclo di vita per tre diverse alternative manutentive.