Engr Abdul Basit

*Why Asphalt pavement is often preferred over concrete pavement ?*
Arsalan Khan ✍️✍️

Because of below reasons 👇

1. Flexibility and Durability: Asphalt has a flexible nature that allows it to withstand minor movements and deformations caused by temperature changes and slight ground shifts. This flexibility helps prevent cracking and structural damage, making it suitable for areas with high freeze-thaw cycles or expansive soils.

2. Faster Construction and Traffic Ready: Asphalt can be laid and compacted relatively quickly, allowing for faster construction and reduced disruption to traffic flow. It can be ready for use within hours of installation, whereas concrete typically takes several days to cure.

3. Maintenance and Repair: Repairing and maintaining asphalt pavement is generally easier and less expensive than concrete. Damaged sections can be easily removed and replaced, reducing downtime and cost. Additionally, routine maintenance activities like seal coating and crack sealing can extend the lifespan of asphalt pavement.

4. Smoother Ride Quality: Asphalt surfaces tend to provide a smoother and quieter ride compared to concrete pavements. The flexible nature of asphalt helps to absorb vibrations and reduce noise levels, enhancing driving comfort.

5. Environmental Benefits: Asphalt is a 100% recyclable material. When old asphalt pavements are removed, they can be milled and reused in new asphalt mixes, reducing the need for virgin materials and minimizing waste.

why we use steel reinforcement in concrete for construction?
Reinforced concrete is a material that combines concrete and some form of reinforcement into a composite whole. Whilst steel bars, wires, and mesh are by far the most widely used forms of reinforcement, other materials are used in special applications, e.g. carbon-filament reinforcement and steel fibers.
Concrete has high compressive strength but low tensile strength. Steel, on the other hand, has a very high tensile strength (as well as a high compressive strength) but is much more expensive than concrete relative to its load-carrying ability. By combining steel and concrete into a composite material, we can make use of both the high tensile strength of steel and the relatively low-cost compressive strength of concrete.
There are some other advantages to combining steel and concrete in this way which is derived from the characteristics of the materials. (These characteristics are summarised in Table-1-).
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The reinforced concrete designer aims to combine the reinforcement with the concrete in such a manner that sufficient of the relatively expensive reinforcement is incorporated to resist the tensile and shear forces which may occur, whilst utilizing the comparatively inexpensive concrete to resist the compressive forces.
To achieve this aim, the designer needs to determine not only the amount of reinforcement to be used but how it is to be distributed and where it is to be positioned. These latter decisions are critical to the successful performance of reinforced concrete and it is imperative that, during construction, reinforcement be positioned exactly as specified by the designer.
It is important, therefore, that both those who supervise the fixing of reinforcement on the Job site, and those who fix it, have a basic appreciation of the principles of reinforced concrete as well as the principles and practices of fixing reinforcement.
Like reinforced concrete, prestressed concrete is a composite material in which the weakness of concrete in tension is compensated by the tensile strength of steel – in this case, steel wires, strands, or bars.

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