An amazing new material for road construction is been developed and tested. When water hits this new invented concrete it doesn’t flow off into all directions, instead it instantly soaks into the road. Ordinary concrete has been produced to be permeable enough to let a minimum of 300mm of water per hour through. This means that the road can safely handle a major storm every 100 years. However, this new concrete is permeable enough to let 36,000 mm of water through per hour! This equates to 880 gallons a minute!
How The New Concrete Resolves Issues:
A main issue with permeable concrete is that when the water flows through the concrete it mixes with dirt which can harden and reduce the permeability as it fills the gaps. However, this new concrete avoids this problem with paste control which is mixed with the concrete and this keeps it absorbent for longer.
How it works:
Ordinary concrete uses sand based concrete. This new invention used no fines concrete, which is made up of minute pieces of crushed granite which is all packed together. The pieces are packed loosely enough to create gaps to allow the water to soak through. The concrete can provide three different designs which are:
So far the concrete has only been used in a car park and a golf course in the UK. Overtime once this new concrete is put into place, it will reduce maintenance costs as there will be less flooding.