Energy Usage and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Pavement Preservation Processes for Asphalt Concrete Pavements

Use of pavement preservation treatments extends the remaining service life of asphalt concrete pavements. These treatments typically include spray applied surface seals, thin overlays, crack treatments, chip seals, slurry seal/micro surfacing, surface recycling and others. Each preservation treatment reduces damaging effects of aging and deterioration of the pavement surface layer and helps protect the integrity of the underlying pavement structure. If proactive preservation treatments are not used, pavements deteriorate more rapidly and require major rehabilitation with structural overlays or reconstruction much earlier. Every type of pavement strategy requires a series of energy using processes that impacts greenhouse gas emissions. Pavement rehabilitation and reconstruction require large amounts of energy to obtain and process raw materials, transport, mix and apply the final product, while pavement preservation processes require much less energy to apply the final product to the road surface. This paper presents information on energy usage per unit area by comparing pavement life extensions of pavement preservation treatments to typical design lives of reconstruction and rehabilitation techniques. Results show that pavement preservation treatments have significantly reduced mitigation energy use and greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional rehabilitation and reconstruction strategies.