A type of self-healing asphalt made from biomass waste could help to cut the UK’s massive pothole bill, which is estimated at £143.5m annually.
A team of scientists from Swansea University and King’s College London used machine learning to design the material, which is able to mend its own cracks without the need for maintenance or human intervention.
Recent figures from RAC revealed that pothole-related breakdowns jumped by a fifth (17%) in the final three months of 2024 compared with the previous quarter.
Cracks form when bitumen – the sticky black material in the asphalt mixture – hardens through oxidisation, but the exact processes behind this are not entirely known.
The team has found a way to reverse cracking and develop methods to ‘stitch’ asphalt back together, creating more durable and sustainable roads.
A machine learning process was used to study organic molecules in complex fluids such as bitumen. The team developed a new data-driven model to accelerate simulations of the material...