Roads for motorists are long black things noteworthy only for the presence or absence of potholes. Roads for the engineer are things of beauty that can be studied, analysed, experimented on and improved.
Technology and research expertise in two companies with strong ties to NUI Galway are being used by local authorities and by the roads construction industry to help build new highways and to repair existing ones.
Pavement Management Services Ltd (PMS) and Highway Testing Laboratory Ltd (HT) have worked for every local authority in the State, for most of the leading road constructors and for the Department of the Environment and the National Roads Authority. The companies have also completed contracts abroad in Trinidad and Tanzania said HT's laboratory manager, Mr Brian Mulry. "We cover quite an area."
PMS was established in 1992 and is based in Dublin. HT was formed in 1994 and is located in NUI Galway's campus innovation centre. Together they employ seven including several graduates and share directors, Dr Kieran Feighan and Mr Owen McCown.
It might be difficult for the layman to spot the science in a blacktop highway but it is there, as any road construction engineer would tell you. The engineer must match anticipated traffic volumes and load-bearing requirements with design features such as depth and type of bedding material and thickness and grade of mixed macadam or asphalt. The soils under the roadway must also be analysed so that the whole thing remains in one piece for as long as possible.
The two companies work together to provide different services to road constructors. PMS tests "flexible pavements" as they are known, using a device known as a falling weight deflectometer which assesses the distortion to a road surface when impacted by a weight - about equivalent to the load applied by a single truck axle - which is dropped from a given height.
The flexible surface momentarily distorts and sensors mounted in the apparatus measure this surface disturbance, said Mr Mulry. The measurements are fed into a computer which can interpret them and a complete picture can be had of the various road material layers without having to cut into the surface. "They do not disturb the existing road or the new road as it is being built," Mr Mulry said.
There are particular advantages of being able to "see" the underlying road layers without digging them up. Road repair is not just a matter of throwing on another few inches of macadam, the applied material must be of the correct type and load-bearing characteristics to prevent the corrective work from simply crumbling away.
The company uses the recovered data to determine the type of surface material and thickness that should be applied in light of traffic loads and the existing roadway.
"Highway Testing grew from the need to carry out an evaluation of the materials that were being used for new and existing roads and for quality control," he said. Its lab facilities are used to study sub-soils, the aggregates used in road materials, analyse the chemical coatings such as bitumen that bind the aggregates together, and can carry out load-bearing and related tests.
It has a research function in the development of wholly-new materials and binding agents, assessing them for characteristics such as crush and abrasion resistance and skid resistance. The laboratory acts as a watchdog for local authorities which want quality assurance applied to the materials used by a construction company, but can also provide quality certification for materials bought in by the companies.
HT is campus-based but it is a "totally independent company", Mr Mulry said. It works in close co-operation with NUI Galway, however, and has close ties with the departments of civil engineering, geology and chemistry. It can bring in university research expertise as necessary which is the advantage of being on-campus.
