Researchers set out to assess performance of pothole repairs

With the repair bill for cars damaged by the country’s potholes estimated to reach £1bn this year, researchers from Nottingham Trent University and Nottingham University have been awarded funding from the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) to undertake a six-month research project into the performance of repair work on potholes.

‘Potholes are a sign of major underlying structural problems — in theory, we should be doing structural rehabilitation — but because of budget and time constraints, there will often have to be patch repairs,’ Dr Mujib Rahman of Nottingham Trent University told The Engineer.

‘The problem with these types of repairs is that everyone tends to use methods based on their own experience — not looking at site conditions, not looking at material types, not looking at the depth of the repair. They don’t have to comply with any sort of design standards.’

The asphalt production and testing facilities at the Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre (NTEC) at Nottingham University will be used to manufacture trial patching sections, which will be tested under controlled loading, and condition regimes.