Two Years of APT Program on the New Test Site duraBASt

Abstract

In addition to laboratory investigation, innovations in road construction require the opportunity to be analyzed and tested before they are used in the sensitive road network. This minimizes the risk of failure of a new development. For this purpose, the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) has developed a research program in cooperation with the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) to promote innovations. One objective of the research framework program “Roads in the 21st century - Innovative road construction in Germany” (BMVBS 2012) is to bring innovations faster towards real-world applications. A test area was planned and built for this purpose in order to realize large-scale projects. The demonstration, investigation and reference areal of BASt (duraBASt) was officially opened in October 2017. The realization of eight different scientific projects has been part of the first construction cycle. The APT program of BASt was used at five out of these projects. Among other things, self-healing asphalt, constructions for energy harvesting from roads, but also various joint connections between precast concrete elements were tested. Due to the variety of projects in this first construction cycle, valuable and comprehensive information could be collected in order to plan and implement future APT projects in a more project-specific way. In addition, the complexity of the tests under real weather conditions was continuously investigated. With duraBASt and the existing test facilities, the national and international research community has a test infrastructure at its disposal that has grown to meet the challenges of future road constructions.