EP1490553A1

EP1490553A1 - Reinforcement mesh for bituminous layers

Info

Publication number: EP1490553A1
Application number: EP03706610A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Jürgen Kassner
Original assignee: Huesker Synthetic GmbH and Co
Current assignee: Huesker Synthetic GmbH and Co
Priority date: 2002-03-22
Filing date: 2003-03-11
Publication date: 2004-12-29
Also published as: US20050106964A1; BR0303087A; RU2299217C2; WO2003080934A1; DE10213057A1; RU2004131215A; AU2003208704A1; JP2005520959A

Abstract

The invention relates to reinforcement mesh for bituminous layers, in particular for bitumen-containing carriageway coatings, with crossed strands of synthetic material. The aim of the invention is to produce a reinforcing mesh which can take extreme forces introduced into a bituminous layer and is elastically deformable. Said aim is achieved whereby the strands are made from a synthetic material with a ductile yield of between 3 % and 8 %, preferably between 5 % and 6 %.

Description

Description:

Reinforcement mesh for bituminous layers

The invention relates to a reinforcement grid for bituminous layers, in particular bituminous pavements, with intersecting strands of synthetic material.

For the production of a covering layer of a traffic area to be driven on, for example the ceiling of a street or a star runway

Airport and the airport tarmac have long been proven to have bituminous layers, particularly asphalt. Asphalt layers have a high resistance to the mechanical loads on a road surface in the usually occurring temperature ranges. As a rule, the asphalt mixture is at the location of the

Adjust road surface temperature. An asphalt surface gives common rubber vehicle tires a good grip due to a very high coefficient of friction. Due to the good deformability in the warm

Asphalt can be produced with very little ripple, so that they offer optimum rolling comfort for vehicle tires.

However, asphalt pavements have the disadvantage that they have a low elastic deformability. Even at low stresses due to mechanical loads or temperature fluctuations, the bituminous material of the asphalt surface begins to flow, and the asphalt surface is plastically and thus permanently deformed.

Reinforcement grids made of synthetic material have been used for several decades in order to increase the resistance to tension and improve its elastic properties while maintaining the positive properties of an asphalt surface. Reinforcement meshes of this type are produced, for example, from highly resilient synthetic yarns made of polymer material, in particular polyester. These yarns are woven into grids with mesh openings several centimeters in size. The groups or strands of warp and weft threads that form the grid are held together by leno threads. Such a reinforcement grid is known from the document DE 20 00 937 AI. To avoid the fact that the reinforcing grid forms a separating layer for the bituminous layer, the grid is provided with large mesh openings. The large meshes of the grille can be penetrated by coarse-grained components of the asphalt surface, which results in an intensive interlocking with the asphalt material of the road surface and thus an effective reinforcement of the bituminous layer over the entire surface. A reinforcement grid according to DE 20 00 937 AI is shown in Fig. 1 of the accompanying drawings.

In order to achieve good adhesion to the bitumen layer, the reinforcement mesh is usually coated with a bitumen-affine adhesive. Alternative forms of such reinforcement mesh additionally have a textile layer filling the mesh, for example consisting of thin ribbons or of. a nonwoven. A reinforcing mesh provided with a fleece layer is known from DE 196 52 584 AI and can be seen in the attached Figures 2 and 3 of the accompanying drawings. This mesh-filling textile layer is also preferably coated with a bituminous adhesive. According to the embodiments of FIGS. 2 and 3, it can have air holes which allow trapped air and adhesive to pass through during the laying of the reinforcement grid. For other applications, the reinforcement grids are backed with a thick bitumen-impregnated fleece.

To fix the intersecting thread strands of the reinforcement grid, the warp thread strands can also be divided into two warp thread groups, the first warp thread group crossing the second warp thread group of the same warp thread strand per stitch in the manner of a half-turn. Such a grid is the subject of the document DE 199 62 441 AI and shown in the attached Figure 4.

As an alternative to the known textile grids with woven strands or strands that are fixed to one another by sewing or knitting technology, thin-layer plastic mats are also made from polymer plastics, which have strands that are perpendicular to one another and form stitches with an opening width of several centimeters. These mesh mats are also preferably made of polyester. Others common in construction technology Plastics such as polyethylene or polypropylene have not proven themselves as asphalt reinforcements because of their temperature sensitivity.

A significant disadvantage of the known reinforcement grids is their discontinuous stress / strain behavior. When tensile stresses are applied, polyester initially has a force absorption that increases approximately in proportion to the elongation, which essentially stagnates after a relative elongation of 1 to 2%. Figure 4 schematically shows a stress / strain diagram of a typical polyester material. In the range between 2 and 5% of the elongation of the polyester material, no significant increase in the tension in the polyester material and thus the force absorbed can be observed. A substantial increase in stress only occurs again from around 5% of the material expansion. It should be taken into account that, according to the stress / strain curve for bitumen drawn in dashed lines in FIG. 4, the maximum stress absorption and thus the elongation at break value for bitumen is close. The reinforcing effect of a polyester lattice therefore essentially only begins when the bitumen material has already reached its maximum ductility and begins to tear. Cracks in the bitumen layer can lead to permanent damage to the pavement.

As an alternative, a reinforcement grid made of glass fibers or glass fiber reinforced plastic has been proposed in the past. A glass fiber has a considerably higher possibility of absorbing force, but it is almost inextensible and brittle. A stress-strain diagram for glass fibers is shown schematically in FIG. 5, the course of the stress-strain curve for a bituminous material being drawn in broken lines.

In particular, glass fibers cannot absorb shear forces. Even when laying a bitumen layer, a reinforcement grid with glass fibers can be damaged in the bitumen layer. Due to the compression of the bitumen layer, shear forces occur which can overload glass fibers and cause them to break. Particularly when a bitumen layer is applied to a carriageway made of concrete slabs, high shear forces can arise both during laying and after laying, for example due to thermal expansion, which leads to the destruction of the glass fibers. Furthermore, a glass fiber has a low alkali resistance, which makes it suitable for The runway and the runway of an airport are impaired because de-icing agents that can penetrate hairline cracks in the roadway can cause alkali-containing substances to reach the grille and - in the case of glass fibers - damage them.

The object of the present invention is to provide a reinforcement grid which can absorb high forces introduced into a bituminous layer and is elastically deformable.

This object is achieved in that the strands of synthetic material have an elongation at break which is between 3% and 8%.

The elongation at break of the synthetic material of the strands is preferably between 5 and 6% and thus exactly in the region of the elongation at break of a bituminous roadway layer.

The choice of a synthetic material which has essentially the same maximum elongation as the layer to be reinforced ensures that, on the one hand, the reinforced layer and, on the other hand, the reinforcement grid interact optimally. Both have the same area of maximum force absorption before the material breaks. Both materials are stretchable in a certain range, preferably by up to 5 or 6%, before the stress absorbed by the materials drops and cracks occur in the reinforced layer. In this way it is ensured that the reinforced layer can not only absorb high forces, but that the bituminous material can be deformed together with the reinforcement within its expansion range without damage to the bitumen layer or the reinforcement. In this way, the shear forces that occur during installation and also in the installed state due to loads and temperature fluctuations can easily be absorbed by deformation of the grid without causing damage.

In one embodiment, the synthetic strands of the grids have a constant force absorption, that is to say an essentially constant stress / strain diagram. In particular, the recorded one runs Tension value or the force absorbed by a strand with a certain cross-section essentially proportional to the value of the elongation. It is known that synthetic materials - unlike metallic materials, for example - generally do not have an exactly proportional stress / strain curve. However, by choosing a suitable synthetic material, a largely steady and almost proportional stress / strain curve can be achieved which, on the one hand, does not have the area of increasing strain occurring with polyester without an increase in the absorbed stress and, on the other hand, does not have the brittle properties of a glass fiber.

The strength properties mentioned can be achieved by producing the intersecting strands of the reinforcing mesh from high-strength polyvinyl alcohol. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a plastic with which the mechanical properties described above, i.e. essentially constant, almost proportional stress / strain curve and an elongation at break in the range between 5 and 6%, can be achieved. The elongation at break essentially corresponds to the elongation at break of the reinforced bitumen layer.

Furthermore, PVA has a high chemical resistance and is neither attacked nor damaged by urea or by salt solutions that occur during road de-icing. PVA is also moisture-independent, which means that it has the same strength in both wet and dry conditions. A glass fiber, for example, does not have this kind of moisture independence. A glass fiber loses its strength considerably as a result of moisture, especially if the reinforced pavement has hairline cracks through which water can reach the reinforcement grid.

Compared to a polyester material, PVA has a two to three times higher strength module, so that considerably thinner PVA strands can be used to achieve the same reinforcement.

Compared to glass grids, PVA is much less brittle and can absorb significantly higher shear and buckling forces. The risk of a PVA grid being destroyed when it is installed or installed is thus much less than the damage or destruction of a glass fiber grid. Due to the similar elongation at break, PVA grids are usually only damaged if the reinforced bitumen layer is also damaged.

Furthermore, PVA grids have a significantly higher dynamic load capacity than grids made of glass fibers.

PVA can be processed directly into a reinforcement grid. However, it is preferably processed as a yarn to form a high-strength textile grid, in particular woven.

The grid made of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) can be coated with a bitumen-affine adhesive like the known polyester grids. Furthermore, it is preferably reinforced with a light membrane, for example a thin fleece.

In practice, the use of reinforcement grids coated with PVA for the reinforcement of layers of earth is already known from the applicant's product sold under the Fortrac M brand. However, the good correspondence of the stress / strain curve of a PVA grid with the stress / strain curve of the reinforced bitumen layer has not yet been achieved with an asphalt reinforcement grid.

Further aspects of the invention are described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. , , ,

Fig. 1 shows a plan view of a first embodiment of a

Reinforcement mesh for bituminous pavements. Fig. 2 shows a plan view and

FIG. 3 shows a perspective view of a second embodiment of a reinforcement grid for bituminous pavements.

4 shows a top view of a further embodiment of a

Reinforcement grid, which can be used for the reinforcement of pavements. 5 shows a schematic stress / strain diagram for polyester and for a bitumen layer.

6 shows a schematic stress / strain diagram for

Glass fiber and for a bitumen layer. 7 shows a schematic stress / strain diagram for

Polyvinyl alcohol and for a bitumen layer.

The reinforcement grids recognizable in FIGS. 1 to 4 have already been explained in detail at the beginning in connection with the description of the prior art. They each have, at regular intervals and parallel to one another, warp thread strands 1,1 ', 1 ". The warp thread strands 1,1', 1" are formed from several threads in the textile lattices shown and consist of polyester or glass fibers according to the prior art , Right-angled to the warp strands 1,1 ', 1 "run at regular intervals and parallel to each other weft strands 2,2', 2", which also consist of polyester or glass fibers according to the prior art.

The warp thread strands 1,1 ', 1 "are connected to the weft thread strands 2,2', 2" at the crossing points. In the first embodiment (see FIG. 1), the connection is made with a leno thread 3, which is guided in each case via a warp thread strand 1 and runs alternately on the left and on the right side of the warp thread strand 1 under the weft thread strand 2. The lattice fabric formed by the warp thread strands 1 and weft thread strands 2 is then coated with a bituminous mass which on the one hand promotes the good connection between the bituminous layer to be reinforced and the lattice and on the other hand fixes the intersecting warp and weft threads to one another.

According to the invention, the warp strands 1 and the weft strands 2 can be formed from polyvinyl alcohol, so that they have a largely constant stress / strain curve and have an elongation at break of about 5 to 6%.

FIGS. 2 and 3 show a reinforcement grid in which the warp thread strands 1 'and the weft thread strands 2' are placed on a thin carrier fleece 4 crossing one another on a Raschel machine. In the Raschel technique, the warp threads 1 'are connected to the carrier fleece 4 by a binding thread 5. At the crossing points of the warp threads 1 'with the weft threads 2', the binding threads 5 also connect the warp threads 1 'with the weft threads 2'. In the present case, warp threads 1 'and weft threads 2' are together with the Fleece coated with a bitumen affine adhesive. According to the applicant's patent application DE 196 52 584 AI, in which such a grid is described, the use of PVA has already been addressed. The adaptation of the tension / elongation behavior of the strands of the grid to the tension / elongation behavior of the bitumen layer according to the invention is, however, not mentioned.

A further embodiment of an open grid mat can be seen from FIG. 4, in which a textile grid according to DE 199 62 441 AI mentioned above can be seen. Here, the warp thread strands 1 "are also divided into two warp thread groups 6,7, the first warp thread group 6 crossing over the second warp thread group 7 of the same warp thread strand 1" per stitch in the manner of a half-turn.

FIGS. 5, 6 and 7 clearly show the advantageous stress / strain curve of a PVA grid according to the invention compared to the known polyester and glass grids.

Fig. 5 shows that a polyester thread hardly experiences an increase in the internal tensile stress over a substantial section in the range between an elongation of 2% to 5%. This means that the force absorption of the reinforcement grid does not increase significantly in this expansion range. The force absorbed by the reinforcing mesh made of polyester only increases from 5%. However, the elongation at break of the bituminous layer to be reinforced also lies in this range, so that when the reinforcing effect occurs, cracks in the bitumen layer can be expected to occur quickly.

A glass fiber grating has the stress / strain behavior shown in FIG. 6. Although it absorbs high forces, it is very brittle and breaks at low elongations.

According to the invention, a grid made of PVA is selected for the reinforcement of a bitumen layer, which has a stress / strain curve that runs essentially synchronously with the bitumen (see FIG. 7). It absorbs continuously increasing stresses in the range between 0 and 5% elongation. The stress increases in proportion to the elongation of the PVA material. Since the reinforced bitumen layer has a similar stress / strain curve, the reinforced layer and the reinforcing mesh can be loaded up to their elongation at break.

The formation of a reinforcement grid according to the invention is possible for all existing grid shapes. This applies both to the prior art of the applicant shown in FIGS. 1 to 4 and to grid mats which are not produced by a textile manufacturing technique.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMBERS

UM "warp thread strand

2,2 ', 2 "weft thread strand

3 leno threads

4 carrier fleece, base layer

5 twine

6 warp thread group

7 warp thread group

Claims

claims:

1. Reinforcement grid for bituminous layers, in particular for bituminous road surfaces, with intersecting strands (1,2; 1 ', 2'; 1 ", 2") made of synthetic material, characterized in that the strands (1,2; 1 ' , 2 '; 1 ", 2") of synthetic material have an elongation at break which is between 3% and 8%.

2. Reinforcement grid according to claim 1, characterized in that the elongation at break of the strands (1,2; 1 ', 2'; 1 ", 2") is between 5% and 6%.

3. Reinforcing mesh according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the force absorbed by the strands (1,2; 1 ', 2'; 1 ", 2") into the range of the elongation at break is substantially proportional to the value of the elongation Strands (1,2; 1 ', 2 ^T ; 1 ", 2") increases.

4. Reinforcement grid according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the strands (1,2; 1 ', 2'; 1 ", 2") consist of high-strength polyvinyl alcohol (PVA).

5. Reinforcing mesh according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the strands (1,2; 1 ', 2'; 1 ", 2") each consist of at least one high-strength yarn.

6. reinforcing mesh according to claim 5, characterized in that the yarns are woven together.

7. reinforcing mesh according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that two intersecting strands (l ', 2') are connected to one another by binding threads.

8. reinforcing mesh according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it is coated with a bitumen-affine adhesive.

9. Reinforcing mesh according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it is connected to a base layer, in particular a bitumen-impregnated carrier fleece 4.