(September 15, 2009) – Commerce City, Colorado, a northern suburb of Denver, is home to oil refineries and other industry. As such, it receives heavy truck traffic on a consistent basis.
By September of 2009, that traffic had worked deep ruts into 56thAvenue on its eastbound approach to Vasquez Road, which connects with I-270 less than a mile away. A 100-foot section of road ruts, measuring about ten feet wide, needed repairs – before winter set in to wreak further havoc with the pavement.
EZ Street cold asphalt was used to fix the road in two places. One was to replace a full depth of road, going down as much as nine inches below the surface over a 10′ by 10′ area. In a portion of the pavement being repaired, the 5″ of existing roadbase was deemed sufficient therefore two lifts of 2″ each of EZ Street was applied. But where that base layer was unstable, loose portions were removed and a full 9″ of the cold asphalt was used (applied in multiple, 2″ lifts).
The longer section of pavement, where the ruts were deemed extensive, was repaired in two steps. One lift of about one inch of the product was placed into the ruts, followed by an overlay of the same EZ Street cold asphalt.
Why was EZ Street used in this application? The polymer-modified asphalt technology can be applied at ambient air temperatures and consequently presents fewer safety hazards. The product can be applied using standard paving machinery.
Microsurfacing of rutted pavement made sense in this application. The deeper portion of the ruts needed significant filler, but in the shallower portions of the rut the progressively shallower edges need to hold as well. The product is sometimes used in single-inch depths over a wide area.
