The consortium of Budimex S.A. and the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Warsaw University of Technology is implementing the SeHePa project, entitled: “Development and implementation of an innovative technology of self-repairing asphalt pavements with high durability”. The project is currently in the industrial research phase, where advanced work is underway to develop a technology for the production of microcapsules with repair filling, related to the assessment of the self-healing effect of the binder and the mineral-asphalt mixture on a laboratory scale.
As a result of numerous experiments during which various types of enveloped materials were tested, gelatin microcapsules with a repair filling in the form of bioesters were developed. The ability of microcapsules to crack and release the repair agent at the sites of microcracks in asphalt binders was confirmed, and an improvement in the self-healing effect of bitumens was observed in ductility studies with the measurement of tensile force and strain energy.
Based on the positive results of tests of asphalt binders with the addition of microcapsules, it was found that there are clear reasons to start advanced tests of mineral and asphalt mixtures with these binders, which will take place in the laboratories of the Warsaw University of Technology and in the Budimex Central Laboratory. Once the industrial research has been completed, the development phase will begin, which will include road test sections. The project is scheduled to be completed in the second quarter of 2023
Background information: https://media.budimex.pl/pr/489010/budimex-pracuje-nad-samonaprawiajaca-sie-droga
