Scientists from Swansea University and King’s College London, in collaboration with scientists in Chile, have announced plans to design self-healing asphalt roads made from biomass waste, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
Research has pointed to a way of reversing cracking in bitumen to 'stitch' asphalt together again, and now new AI models could provide a boost to the development of these new solutions.
Dr Jose Norambuena-Contreras, a researcher on the project at Swansea University, estimated that by closing the cracks to prevent potholes from forming in the future you 'can extend the surface lifespan by 30%'.
To make the asphalt 'self-healing', the team 'incorporated tiny, porous materials known as spores, which are smaller than a strand of hair and produced by plants'.
These spores are then filled with recycled cooking oil, which is released when the asphalt begins to crack, helping to reverse the process.
When micro-cracks begin to appear inside the asphalt, the deformation leads to the oils being released from the spores to fill the cracks.
This also prevents the oxidation of the bitumen, which would otherwise make it brittle, allowing larger cracks to form and ultimately result in a pothole.
A paper from 2022, showed that in laboratory experiments, the 'biobased spore microcapsules completely healed a crack into an aged bitumen sample in 50 min'.
Now, the research is being supported by AI machine learning that can be used to study organic molecules in complex fluids like bitumen. A paper from last year showed members of the same team had developed 'a new data-driven model to accelerate atomistic simulations, advancing research into bitumen oxidation and crack formation'.
They are also collaborating with Google Cloud to simulate the behaviour of the bitumen on a computer.
While still in development, Swansea University said the team’s research has 'enormous potential to improve infrastructure and advance sustainability around the world'.
Dr Francisco Martin-Martinez, an expert in computational chemistry at King’s College London, said: 'In our research, we want to mimic the healing properties observed in nature. For example, when a tree or animal is cut, their wounds naturally heal over time, using their own biology. Creating asphalt that can heal itself will increase the durability of roads and reduce the need for people to fill in potholes.
'We are also using sustainable materials in our new asphalt, including biomass waste. This will reduce our dependence on petroleum and natural resources. Biomass waste is available locally and everywhere, and it is cheap. Producing infrastructure materials from local resources like waste reduces the dependence on petroleum availability, which helps those areas of the world that have limited access to petroleum-based asphalt.'
Iain Burgess, UKI Public Sector Leader at Google Cloud, added: 'We first worked with Dr Francisco Martin-Martinez when he joined the Google Cloud Research Innovators Programme in 2022, providing him access to Google experts, technical resources and training to support his research.
'Now, it is inspiring to see how teams at Swansea and King’s College London are unlocking the power of cloud-based and AI tools, including Gemini and Vertex AI, to drive more efficient processes and discover chemical properties.'
The Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance survey has put the latest carriageway repair backlog at £16.3bn.
