Abstract:
Providing climate-resistant road infrastructure is a prerequisite for the development and
economic growth of developing regions of the world. The unit costs of providing basic road
infrastructure in these areas are currently unacceptably high – to such an extent that the
available funds will never be able to address the current backlog in road network provision,
maintenance and rehabilitation. Nano-scale silica-based technologies have been used in
the built environment for over two centuries to protect buildings, monuments and statues.
The same technologies can be used to improve naturally available granular materials for
use in road load-bearing layers. Experience has shown that such practices could have a
positive impact, while substantially reducing the unit costs of the provision of road
infrastructure. This can be achieved without affecting the quality of the end product and
improving the durability, resulting in more climate-resilient road infrastructure. The
implementation of these technologies depends on understanding the fundamental
challenges facing pavement engineers in practice and the basic concepts and impact that
nano-scale silica-based technologies can have on addressing these challenges. This
paper aims to identify these challenges and how these technologies can effectively
address them to provide cost-effective, long-lasting, low-maintenance road infrastructure
while facing imbedded resistance to change.
