Asphalt maintenance is an important part of taking care of your property. When your asphalt begins showing signs of wear and tear, such as the development of cracks, you’ll want to address it immediately by having it repaired. Leaving it be can lead to worse damage, such as bigger cracks and even potholes. Not only do these blemishes hurt your property’s curb appeal, they can also pose a safety hazard. One thing you’re going to want to keep an eye on is the weather conditions affecting the asphalt. Heat in particular can affect your asphalt in a negative manner.
How does heat affect asphalt?
All hard surfaces, including asphalt, will absorb heat. This causes not only the surface temperature to rise, but also causes the ambient temperature to rise. This results in UHI (Urban Heat Island). UHI is basically an effect in which urban environments, which consist of less vegetation and more roads and buildings, have a significantly higher temperature than the rural areas directly around it. This means that when you are installing asphalt, you’ll want an asphalt material that reflects as much heat as possible instead of an asphalt that absorbs most heat. With 0.0 ratings measuring total absorption, new asphalt has a solar reflectance of 0.05, aged asphalt has a solar reflectance of 0.1 and white asphalt shingle has a solar reflectance of 0.21.
HMA Compaction
Compaction is the process in which the volume of air present in an asphalt mix is reduced. The more air volume that is reduced within an asphalt mixture, the more the weight or density of the asphalt increases. The viscosity of asphalt will be affected by the HMA temperature. When HMA temperature decreases, the asphalt cement binder will become more resistant to deformation because it will become more viscous.
Basically, temperature – specifically heat – will affect asphalt in a number of ways. It’s important to keep in mind how weather conditions are affecting asphalt when choosing what type of asphalt to use on your property. Not to mention that you should be keeping an eye on how weather conditions are affecting asphalt on your property over time.
