Technologies and materials for overhauling roads in permafrost areas

This paper addressed the selection of overhaul methods for roads in the permafrost area. Ensuring the strength and stability of the road base and engineering structures under the permafrost conditions and deep seasonal freezing of soils remains one of the main scientific and technical challenges of road construction and maintenance in the northern regions. The main factors causing the failure of road structures were reviewed, including both climate change and complex geological and hydrogeological conditions of the area. Since the construction of the Amur Road, the deformation has been observed in many of its sections. In 2012, the Federal State Institution of Road Management “Zabaykalye”, together with engineering and scientific organisations, developed a target programme for inspecting such sections. The article discusses the renovation measures and technologies elaborated under this programme, which include the construction of culverts, rockfills, thermal diodes and cooling layers, awnings, and protective berms. The monitoring of the repaired sections shows insignificant deformation of the road surface and road base; 55 % of the sections were fully stabilised. However, the final assessment of the permafrost stabilisation will take a longer time. The establishment of an effective system of engineering-geocryological monitoring for the Amur Road should become the most important measure, whose implementation will allow dangerous deformations to be prevented and efficient measures for protecting the roadbed from their negative impact to be developed.

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