Effective techniques for quick response to oil spillage on Singapore roads

• Main Author: Lee, Dickson Wai Keong
• Other Authors: Lim Teik Thye
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Civil engineering::Transportation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/71271
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

There has been an increasing concern for oil spillages on Singapore roads as the closure of affected roads will result in traffic congestions. In the event of a major oil spillage, the traffic congestion could last up to more than 10 h as the road would require an extensive clean-up process. The current surface treatment techniques, which involved the use oil removers such as degreasers and oil absorbents to remove the oil contaminants, is believed to be time-consuming and tedious. Therefore, it is crucial to develop an effective surface treatment technique to reduce the duration of the clean-up process while ensuring that the treated pavement is able to fulfil the required skid resistance of the road. In this research, an oil spillage was simulated on the dense graded and open graded specimens which were fabricated in the laboratory. Subsequently, the oil-spilled specimens were subjected to either tack coat or chip seal surface treatment. Both the tack coat and chip seal surface treatments required 1.5 h before it was fully set and cured. A series of performance tests, namely skid resistance test, deformation test and adhesion (tension) test was conducted to evaluate the performance characteristics of the treated specimens. In addition, a skid resistance test was conducted for current surface treatments techniques such as degreasers and oil absorbents. The results of the performance tests for the degreaser, oil absorbent granules, tack coat and chip seal surface treatments were compared. The comparison suggested the chip seal treated specimens displayed the best results for both the skid resistance and deformation test. The chip seal treated specimens achieved the highest skid resistance value and the deformation test indicated that the chip seal treated specimens had gained resistance towards permanent deformation. Therefore, the performance test results revealed that the chip seal surface treatment is the most effective surface treatment in mitigating oil spillages on Singapore roads. In addition, further studies can be conducted to assess the effectiveness of a of surface treatment whereby a combination of oil removers and tack coat or chip seal surface treatments is employed.