Strengthening Manitoba Roads for Decades to Come!
Tire Derived Aggregate
Engineered Rubber Aggregate (ERA) has developed a system that dramatically cuts costs by utilizing Tire Derived Aggregate (TDA) type ‘B’ to replace coarse mineral aggerate to strengthen the road’s subgrade.
TDA has the material properties which, when combined with proper placement and installation method, eliminates the soft road problem permanently.
Utilizing coarse mineral aggregate to strengthen the subgrade can put that solution out of reach in most municipal road maintenance budgets.
Waiting for the subgrade to dry out and firm up is the most common way to deal with the problem long term, but the time lost, and loads not delivered, is more costly than it may initially seem.
The key to building frost resistant roads and highways lies in the subgrade.
The subgrade is the material over undisturbed soil on which the road is built. If the road is built on soil that wicks moisture into the roadbed from the undisturbed soil, the road will soften during the spring thaw.
Once the water is in the road bed, it freezes onto saturated soil layers as the frost penetrates the road. The amount of moisture in this frozen layer will dictate the degree of damage that occurs when the soil warms up and ice turns to water.
The discolored wet soils that come to the surface, locally known as frost boils, are the visible result of saturated sub-grade thawing.
The subgrade must be designed to prevent water from wicking up into the roadbed. Type B TDA is the perfect material for this job. It is made from rubber tires shredded into strips two to three inches wide, and SOFT ROAD BLUES SOLUTION up to ten inches long.
It weighs roughly one third as much as mineral aggregate per cubic yard, has five to six times the insulation value, and is coarse enough to prevent moisture wicking.
TDA creates a thick mat strengthening the road base, preventing moisture wicking and frost penetration into soil, resulting in road that will carry loads in all seasons indefinitely.
