Focus on technology and sustainability

Concessionaires invest in laboratories, research centers and test runways to improve their roads

Created in 1999 to intensify the process of continuous improvement in the conditions of safety, durability and comfort of Dutra Highway, the Centro de Pesquisas Rodoviárias (CPR – Road Research Center) of CCR NovaDutra ended 2014 with a very positive balance: 13,500 tests and five researches were carried out and four thousand certificates were issued.

Among works carried out by the center, three researches were concluded, including one about sustainability concepts incorporated in catwalks along the road, developed in partnership with the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA). It includes the mapping of sustainable techniques and materials to be used in construction and maintenance of catwalks along the road. “The use of lasting materials and the reduction of maintenance needs are also sustainability. Fiberglass structures of the catwalks, for example, ensure good resistance and low weight at the same time and resist to aggressive environments such as saline and alkaline. Solar panels may feed power for lighting the catwalk and even the surrounding ways”, says the coordinator of the CPR, Valéria Faria.

The CPR also designs asphalt mixtures with rubber asphalt for works of paving in new lanes and side roads. Along 2014, 6000 cu.mt. of asphalt mix were produced. This corresponds to 18,000 recycled vehicle tires.

Warm mix asphalt was also studied in the CPR during 2014. These mixtures reduce energy consumption in production and paving and emit 20 percent less pollutants than conventional asphalt mixtures.

Another action carried out by the CPR is the pavement management. Approximately 1.1 million sq.mt. of lanes. Interchanges and accesses were recovered during the last year. All actions of the Centro de Pesquisas Rodoviárias are based on road monitoring and are directed to users’ safety and comfort.

More than 800,000 tires were recycled

With the purpose of improving the Brazilian asphalt, the EcoRodovias Group—holding of the concessionaires Ecovias, Ecopistas, Ecovia, Ecocataratas, Ecosul and Eco101, as well as Elog and Ecoporto Santos—created a center of innovation that searches, develops and tests more sustainable solutions such as the Warm Mix Asphalt and the Rubber Asphalt, also called ecologic asphalt, that is paving almost the whole network of the Anchieta-Imigrantes System (SAI).

Infrastructure includes an asphalt plant and a laboratory of research and analysis. “One km of one lane made in rubber asphalt uses approximately 600 tires that would be otherwise discarded in the environment”, points out Paulo Rosa, support engineer of special projects from Ecovias.

The team of Ecorodovias also passed to use the WMA – Warm Mix Asphalt with rubber asphalt, reducing the temperature of production (and consequently that of compaction) and lowering the emission level of harmful agents. The technology allows a longer time for temperature loss of these mixtures, what allows the transport to longer distances with lower temperature loss.

According to international researches, the technology reduces the emission of CO2 in at least 40 percent if compared to the emission in hot-mix plants.