REGARDING ESSENTIAL MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR OF THE ROADS

It is very important that preventive maintenance should be taken in hand at the first indication of failure, and immediately it becomes necessary as the delay will cause minor defects to develop into the major ones as a result of traffic action or the weather, and the failure of a road structure may take place,in case of the inadequate drainage or poor maintenance of the drainage system, Bad design ie , insufficient thickness of construction required to carry the traffic load so imposed , Faulty construction related to construction of base and the sub grade ,poor surface maintenance and open textured road surfaces are more liable to fail than close textured surfaces .The source of trouble should always be determined before making any repairs .Surface repairs on a defective base or subgrade is a wasteful labour and expenditure. Every effort must be made to reduce interference with traffic with good organization of repair work. Undue strengthening of weak spots may create level differences in impact loading and traffic wear and tear , and may cause additional damage to the adjoining surface areas .Deep potholes are usually due to poor drainage system of the road ,or soft pockets in the sub-grade . The road in such cases should be dug out down to the solid sub grade and the fault made good with well graded aggregate, and the top should be bound with fine screening,watered and rolled .In the case of bituminous surfacing potholes usually form only when the binder has lost it's adhesive properties for some reason with the result that the aggregate is displaced by traffic action .All dirt dust ,caked up mud ,slush ,animal drippings vegetation and all other rubbish should be removed from the water bound surface before scarifying and it is a cheap method of resurfacing the old roads .Where there is a thin crust of hard metal on the existing road and it is proposed to lay the new metalling over the old without scarifying, the old surface should be scored for the full width of the road with diagonal lines 40 mm deep and 30 cm apart for thin coats and 40 cm apart for thick coats of metal to provide the necessary key , and the lines should be at 45 degree to the center line of the road .As for as possible the original surface should not be disturbed for more than what is required.