Today I was picking up my cleaning from cleaners and happened to notice a section of highway in Siloam Springs, Arkansas where I live. First we have had a pretty bad winter here and there are a lot pot
holes. This got me to thinking. We have a new “interstate / toll
road” just west of us that leads to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The highway
was laid with concrete instead of asphalt. Within a couple of years
the concrete highway began to break down. The state of Oklahoma spend
hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs and countless man hours
repairing the highway. For about 48 miles in both lanes there are
saw marks in the road, and some kind of material was injected from
what I was told, and the road surface reground due to uneven wear.
New highways are normally a conglomeration of crushed limestone, sand
and “cement” to form concrete.
Now here is the question.
While sitting in my car I noticed a section of the old highway that
runs though our little berg. The old highway was concrete mixed with
what is normally referred to as river gravel. River gravel is made up
of rounded flint and chert rock smooth by rolling in the rivers and
creeks. Our creeks and rivers are lined with the stone all over the
Ozarks, and most of Eastern Oklahoma. In our town the old section of
highway has been traveled since the early 1900s and was part of the
original Arkansas highway system that became U.S. Highway 412, until
the road was located approximately one-half mile further south so as
to “bi-pass” a growing city. This took place somewhere in the
neighborhood of 35 or 40 years ago. With the new highway being
repaired or rebuilt almost every three or four years. The old
highway (the one replace by the bypass) is still a very well traveled
road which has been re-surfaced and patched countless time with
asphalt over the years. Yest section of the old highway which are
made up of cement and river gravel seem to be in almost perfect
repair. Of course there are section with the occasional cracks but
over all they are holding up very well.
So my inquiry or point is,
“what are the construction people doing different in their formula
making concrete than now?” One should also note the concrete roads
of today are gray in colored, while the old roads seem to be whiter,
almost a shell colored with exposed river gravel.
Roman's built building and
aqueducts with cement that are still standing after centuries of usage and we can not
build a highway that is not worn out in a couple of years.
Bridges
fall down, turn to dust?
What give?
