New Engineering Masterpiece Will Make Fixing Potholes Fast And Easy!
This could be one of the coolest and most useful ideas I’ve ever seen, and as pointed out in this concept video, it could save cities millions of dollars. Also, it seems only logical that this would also save drivers millions in repairs by getting potholes fixed in a more timely and effective manor.
The concept seems pretty simple, although this animation likely makes it look a little more straight forward than it is for obvious reasons. The reason it seems like this will work, at least based on my understanding, is the idea of cleaning out the pothole before trying to fill it and making a uniform shape that will be easier to fill. Most cities send a few guys out in a truck with a pile of asphalt and a couple of shovels and they just dump some asphalt in the hole, smoosh it down the best they can, and move on to the next gash in the road. As you can imagine, with cars driving over it almost immediately and no real preparation going into the process, the fresh asphalt begins to be eaten away almost immediately.
Often, within a couple of weeks, the pothole is back to exactly where it was before, and the process has to begin again. This is obviously costly to the city to have to fill the same obstacle repeatedly and it can certainly be costly to drivers who hit the hole and pop a tire and/or bend a wheel, not to mention the lost productivity due to having to stop and install a spare tire or wait on a tow truck.
The proposed process uses a massive truck to located the potholes, clean them out with what is the equivalent of a massive asphalt CNC machine that cleans out the hole, leaving a smooth, uniform shape.
From there, the truck selects what would be an appropriately shaped asphalt “plug” to fill in the now-cleaned pothole, fitting into the opening like a perfect puzzle piece. This perfect fit will, at least in theory, allow the plug to remain in place longer than a loose pile of asphalt.
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