Development of functional rubber-based impact-absorbing pavements for cyclist and pedestrian injury reduction
2021 (English)In: Sustainability, E-ISSN 2071-1050, Vol. 13, no 20, article id 11283Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Cyclists, pedestrians and elderly people’s specific needs in urban road infrastructures are often neglected. They rarely benefit from safety measures or innovations. Inspired by playgrounds and aiming to reduce vulnerable road users (VRUs) injuries, the development of the rubber-based Impact-Absorbing Pavements (IAP) offers a possibility to rethink the design of urban pavements and address safety on roads, which constitutes a major challenge in terms of attaining more sustain-able, resilient, and safe cities. Therefore, bituminous mixtures with four different crumb rubber con-tents, 0%, 14%, 28%, and 33% (in total weight), were produced by partial aggregates substitution using the dry process. After the assessment of the geometrical and volumetric properties, the mechanical performances were evaluated. Finally, the samples were tested to measure the abrasion and impact attenuation with the well-known Head Injury Criterion (HIC), at different temperatures from −10 to 40 °C, to obtain a wide range of values referring to possible weather conditions. A significant effect of the rubber percentage and layer thickness on impact attenuation was observed. All observations and results confirm the feasibility of the IAP concept and its positive effect on future injury-prevention applications. © 2021 by the authors.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI , 2021. Vol. 13, no 20, article id 11283
Keywords [en]
Bituminous mixtures, Critical fall height (CFH), Crumb rubber, End-of-life tyres, Head injury criterion (HIC), Impact-absorbing pavements (IAPs), Pavement surfac-ing, Vulnerable road users (VRUs), feasibility study, injury, pavement, pedestrian, reduction, rubber
National Category
Vehicle Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-56924DOI: 10.3390/su132011283Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85117216683OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-56924DiVA, id: diva2:1613410
Note
Funding details: Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, H2020, 765057; Funding text 1: Funding: This research was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement Nº 765057 through the SAFERUP! Project.
2021-11-222021-11-222023-11-01Bibliographically approved