Coffee Time Challenge

The Challenge: Tackling cracks head on

Filling cracks in the road can be both hazardous and time consuming to the workers involved. How can this be done better?

We have all been there. Driving down the road, minding your own business and then 'thwack!?' You hit a pothole. Depending on where you live and how much the road is used, it might be there for a few hours or a few years.

Potholes are caused by cracks forming in the road, into which water seeps and then freezes. As the water expands, this pushes the top layer of tarmac up and creates a hole. The trouble is it usually has to turn into a relatively large problem before anyone fixes it. And when potholes are fixed, it can be a time consuming, and dangerous process, with workers having to work alongside fast-moving vehicles.

It is estimated that poor roads cost British motorists £2.8 billion every year in burst tyres and suspension damage, with authorities paying out £50 million every year to the motorist as compensation for poor road maintenance.

The Challenge
The challenge this month, then, is to come up with a way of quickly and easily repairing road cracks before they spread in to something worse. Your device should be easily operated, with minimal personnel and be able to cover a lot of road per day.

Unless you have an inspiring leader and take a leaf out of the film 'Cool Hand Luke', it is unlikely road resurfacing productivity can be increased using people alone. Therefore the solution should be an automated systems mounted or integrated within a vehicle. However, the object of the exercise is also to make this a cost effective process so simplicity, and off-the-shelf components are a must.

The key to success is likely to be the speed at which a crack can be detected and then filled, so manually identifying the holes is a far from the ideal solution. While a purpose-built vehicle might be optimal, remember to keep costs down and make any device easy to deploy and at a relatively low cost to councils.

The solution is surprisingly elegant and is largely an integration exercise involving an array of sensors and some clever software to allow it to be deployed on the move. When you see the solution, you may consider it obvious. In the meantime, see if you can come up with anything better.

Author
Justin Cunningham

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