15-01 Maintenance Repair Techniques

ENERGY-SECTOR: BRIEFTxDOT Maintenance Division, Office of Asset ManagementENERGY-SECTOR BRIEF

Maintenance Division, Roadway Asset Management

A variety of roadway maintenance repair techniques and materials are being used by TxDOT Districts to repair and extend the life of pavements. Current practices used by the Districts in South and West Texas have been captured in a Research Report titled “Current TxDOT Practices for Repair of Road Damage Associated with Energy Development and Production.”

This report and related documents are available on the TxDOT Maintenance Division (MNT) SharePoint site at https://txdot.sharepoint.com/sites/ division-mnt/SitePages/Home.aspx.

A series of Energy Sector Briefs have been prepared to summarize TxDOT maintenance activities performed by the Districts to repair roadways damaged by energy sector traffic. These Energy Sector Briefs are listed below and are available on the web site provided above:

14-03 Shoulder/Edge Repair Techniques

15-02 Shallow Patching

15-03 Deep Patching

15-04 Level-Up Patching

15-05 Surface Treatment/ Seal Coat/Chip Seal

15-06 Pavement Strengthening

D uring the early and mid 2010s considerable damage was

experienced on highways in Texas due to the rapid expansion of oil and gas drilling operations. Relatively large numbers of heavy trucks utilized TxDOT’s road network during this period.

About 900 oil/gas drilling rigs (about half of all rigs operating in the United States) were active primarily in the West Texas Permian Basin and the South Texas Eagle Ford Shale plays. Depending on the type of oil/gas well drilled and completed, loaded truck traffic to an individual well site is in the range of 1200 to 3,000 vehicles. These vehicles are used to haul material and equipment for site preparation, drilling, completion and operation of the well and for the development of the distribution network for the produced oil and gas. The haul of fresh water and salt water (flow back as well as production water), Portland cement, hydraulic fracturing chemicals and sands constitute a significant portion of this traffic.

As materials and equipment availability change, these methods will be altered. Feedback on performance of various maintenance treatments used in the energy sector will also result in changes to these methods, materials and techniques. A brief description of these routine maintenance techniques follow.

Removal of a localized area of the failed pavement to a minimum depth of 2 to 3 inches and replacement with an asphalt bound material

15-02 Shallow Patch

Repair and widening of unsurfaced roadway shoulders (Photos from Lewis Nowlin)

14-03 Shoulder/Edge Repair Techniques

Maintenance costs on Farm to Market (FM) roadways impacted by oil/gas development and production traffic increased in some areas of the state from about $500 to $1,500 per mile to $35,000 to $45,000 per mile.

In partnership with

ContactsMark McDaniel Transportation Engineer Texas Department of Transportation (512) 416-3113 mark.mcdaniel@txdot.gov

John Bilyeu Transportation Engineer Texas Department of Transportation (512) 416-3291 john.bilyeu@txdot.gov

Jon Epps Research Engineer Texas A&M Transportation Institute (979) 458-5709 j-epps@tamu.edu

David Newcomb Senior Research Scientist Texas A&M Transportation Institute (979) 458-2301 d-newcomb@ttimail.tamu.edu

Removal of a localized area of the pavement to a depth greater than about 4 inches and replace with flexible base course materials and/or asphalt bound materials

Improve the load carrying ability of a pavement by adding thickness to the pavement section/or stabilizing existing materials by Full Depth Recycling (FDR)

Pulverization, stabilization, addition of new material and the addition of an asphalt bound surface are common steps in the process

One or more application of a single layer of asphalt binder followed by an application of single layer of aggregate

Placement of a relatively thin asphalt bound surfacing material on an existing pavement for the purpose of improving ride quality or filling ruts

15-03 Deep Patch

15-06 Pavement Strengthening15-05 Surface Treatment/ Seal Coat/Chip Seal

15-04 Level-Up Patch