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By Shane David
Jetpatching is a revolutionary new road repair process first developed in New
Zealand. The system is designed to provide a durable and high-quality instant
repair to road surface defects such as potholes, wheel tracking or rutting. WS
Atkins in Somerset has used it for over 3 years now. We have also built a
successful third-party business working outside of the County, as far afield as
Scotland, carrying out repairs on a section of busy motorway.
The Jetpatching unit is a purpose-built lorry mounted machine that carries all
the materials needed to make the road repair. The Operator first cleans out the
defective area using compressed air, and then applies a primer to the repair.
Aggregate and Bitumen Emulsion are mixed in exact amounts and forced into the
repair area using compressed air. The material hits the road surface at around
70mph, and sets into place. The Operator builds the depth of repair up in layers
to produce a flat finish, level with the surrounding road surface, blinds the
repair off with a layer of dry chippings. Excess chippings are then blown away.
That's it! The whole process is completed with the touch of a few buttons. Road
do not need to be closed to carry out repairs as in the past, and the duration
of work cut from days to hours.
The first repairs made using this process in Somerset are over 3 years old now,
and are still intact. In fact they are as good as the day they were laid! We
recently took delivery of a brand-new £100,000 machine, and hope to expand
further next year.
Article Source: One Team, Winter 2001
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