Eurovia’s surfacing business, EST, has recently completed what it says is the largest micro-surfacing operation ever undertaken on the strategic road network.
Working for Tarmac on behalf of Highways England, it laid approximately 115,000 square metres of Cold Applied Ultra-Thin Surfacing (CAUTS) to the carriageway around the A1/A421 Black Cat roundabout, using Eurovia’s BBA HAPAS approved Micro-surfacing product, GripFibre.
GripFibre uses Eurovia’s highly modified bitumen emulsion - Emulvia Grip P – which is licensed by their internal materials R&D centre, JLUK, and produced by Eurovia’s internal emulsion manufacturer, PolyBitumens.
The product is designed to reduce the risk of aggregate segregation, improving surface texture and skid resistance, leaving a quality road surface which EST said significantly enhances the durability of the carriageway.
Paul Goosey, managing director for production at Eurovia, said: ‘I am delighted that we have had this amazing opportunity to not only play a leading role in the SRN’s largest micro-surfacing operation, but to complete it using our very own, unique GripFibre product.
‘Works of this scale are not undertaken lightly and we have drawn upon our team’s expert planning and execution – I’m so proud of the efforts of our crews and all involved. I hope that the success of this operation will be the catalyst for further CAUTS applications using the GripFibre solution on other parts of our country’s road network, ensuring good value and durability for taxpayers.’
EST said its approach adopted by delivers numerous benefits, notably in relation to cost, time and carbon savings. It said this scheme reduced costs by around 65%, when compared to a conventional plane out and re-lay hot asphalt operation, and provided significant reduction in carbon emissions through cold application, with the material applied at temperatures below 30°C.
It said the scheme also delivered time savings of around 66%, with its four micro-surfacing crews taking two weekends to complete the job, compared to up to six weekends for a traditional resurfacing operation of this scale.
