Looking into the future of roads.

Back in the summer the HUB team were invited as guests to attend the Shell Eco-marathon Europe. Held for the first time in London, this year’s theme was ‘Make the Future London” which was attended by more than 30,000 guests to the festival of ideas, innovation and friendly competition held at the Olympic Stadium from June 30-July 3.

After we sat down with the Shell Bitumen team and Professor John Read, General Manager Technology for Shell Specialities, gave us an overall view of where Shell Bitumen stands today. John has been in the business for over 30 years and looks after bitumen and sulphur along with a team of 100 world class technical specialists around the world who support the business, including a Global R&D Centre in Bangalore where the core of the fundamental research is done.

John, commented: “We have three purpose built laboratories tasked with taking that research and adapting it to local needs. One at Strasbourg which covers Europe, one in Bangkok which looks after Asia and a third in Shanghai looking after China. Their brief is to adapt the technology for further use and work with our customers developing proprietary solutions ensuring that they service their needs which is achieved by a sales/service team in each country we operate.

“Shell has decided that we’re going to continue to produce bitumen, but we’ve decided that it’s not economical to do that in all locations. Therefore, we have centred on nine of the group’s 42 refineries where we will produce bitumen. The ambition is for these to be a million tonnes plus per refinery. In Europe, we are well catered for by a joint venture at Eastern Refinery Ltd in the UK and three in Germany - the Cologne Godorf refinery, PCK Schwedt refinery and the MiRO joint venture refinery; and the Pernis refinery in the Netherlands.

“The Pernis facility is the largest integrated refinery complex in Europe and occupies a strategic location in the Rotterdam industrial region. Shell continues to invest and increase its bitumen supply capabilities in the European market, especially in the Rotterdam area. Based on these production points, we’ve set up logistics to move bitumen down the Rhine, to get out to Rotterdam, and then to ship anywhere.”

John then told us about the technology that was used to build the track for the Shell Eco-marathon and the positive effect on our roads today.

“The 2.2km temporary track was built in a very short time and it was imperative that the surface was as smooth as possible to enable the cars to achieve maximum fuel economy. To make this work we had to design an asphalt, develop a bitumen and lay within the very short access time. The technology we applied was to design a very low temperature material which enabled us to produce the asphalt at a very much lower temperature than would be the conventional case. In this case, we used a Shell Bitumen low temperature binder which was laid by a specialist contractor – FM Conway. The final material that was used cooled to ambient temperature more quickly therefore allowing the track to be opened within the short timescale available.

“The technology used is now been adapted across the world because the time we are allowed on a road to make repairs or build it is becoming shorter. Typically, on a motorway contract you can be given a short time frame concession at night in the winter where it can be very cold with inhospitable conditions, so if we can shorten the time it’s closed to traffic you can lay more in a night, so production increases and because you use less fuels to heat the aggregates and bitumen production there is a positive sustainability element. When you produce an asphalt the emissions that come off are a remote-controlled reaction so for every 12â—¦C you either increase or decrease the temperature, you either double or reduce the emissions by half so in dropping by 24â—¦C you would automatically, by four times, reduce the amount of very volatile organic compounds, VOC’s, nitrous oxides, H2S and various things that all come off when your manufacturing, which you don’t particularly want in the atmosphere, therefore all of this is very good for the environment, so this event is all about how do we make all forms of mobility more sustainable.”

Emma Mallinson, Regional Marketing Manager Europe & Africa at Shell Bitumen, commented: “In contrast to the example that John was making on road closures for road surfacing an extreme example of this are runways at an airport. Where with an increasing demand on the paving its essential that the time taken out to resurface is kept to an absolute minimum."

“Recently we have been working in partnership with London City Airport and delivered a polymer modified bitumen which will achieve more performance and durability, increasing the life of the surface with the added affect in helping Shell Bitumen introduce new products for the airport industry.”

Reducing the road temperature:
We asked John about temperature reduction and he replied, “Typical asphalt is produced 160-170â—¦C so it all depends on the technology. Shell Bitumen have several tiers of technology for reducing the road temperature - LT which was used on this track has dropped the temperature by about 30â—¦C, which in effect has reduced the total emissions by six-fold compared to conventional material. This also has the added benefit of a carriageway being open to traffic probably 90 minutes quicker than normal. We also have a top tier product called WAM Foam which is a warm asphalt mixture where we take hot bitumen and we inject water into it. Bitumen like all oils is hydrophobic and doesn’t mix with an oil so they don’t mix, but of course as soon as you put cold water into hot bitumen you tend to steam, so that steam tends to form bubbles and those bubbles pour bitumen into thin films and those films mean you can coat aggregates at very low temperatures. With WAM Foam we can drop the temperature, dependant on the system, by 50-60â—¦C therefore reducing your missions and fuel usage enormously.

“Shell were first for this type of technology with WAM Foam being developed between 1992-1995. I think that’s an important point to note that quite rightly the road network that any country has is their biggest single asset so they are very conservative in adopting anything new on the road network as these are engineering materials that must last a long time and they can’t afford to make mistakes as its too costly. So typically, we find that the innovation curve is 8-10 years to get to the point that a technology is commercially accepted and probably between 15-20 years before it’s a commercial success. It’s a very long innovation curve, hence you see us doing development back in 1992 with that technology only becoming a big part of the market today.”
International leading-edge research:

With international, leading-edge research, Shell Bitumen can offer solutions to improve the quality of road infrastructure, such as addressing deformation, resistance, noise protection, safety and economic efficiency.

A high-performance product, such as Shell Cariphalte, which is a polymer-modified binder with very high resistance to deformation and excellent low-temperature flexibility, is therefore ideally suited to extreme conditions as well as making sound economic sense on a whole life cost basis.

Shell Cariphalte DM is used on the busiest roads in Europe, including sections of the M25 which has recently celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. At 117 miles, the orbital motorway is the second largest bypass in Europe and was originally designed for a maximum of 88,000 vehicles. Today the M25 is carrying double the number of vehicles per day with Shell Cariphalte DM still in situ – standing a true test of time.

Shell Bitumen have also focused their efforts for many years on asphalt recycling. Shell Cariphalte RC is an innovative, cost-effective solution that helps conserve natural resources and reduce total asset cost. Launched more than 16 years ago, it is a cost-effective polymer modified bitumen designed for high performance road applications in combination with Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement in base, upper and high-quality layers.

Smart surfaces of the future:
Looking to the future Shell has identified many more opportunities to innovate. It is exploring synthetic bitumen emulsions that reduce nitrous oxides in the air by converting them into harmless nitrates that wash away from the road surface. The company has started to explore the technical feasibility of changing the visual appearance (phosphorescence) of road pavement surfaces, to facilitate ambient lighting, alert traffic to changes of road driving condition or even danger.

Today, Shell is partnering with suppliers of phosphorescent products and several universities to investigate the feasibility of scaling up phosphorescent asphalt mixtures.

Additionally, Shell is also working with Pavegen, a technology company that has developed paving slabs to convert energy from people's footsteps into electrical power. It is also possible that it could be used to generate electricity to feed the grid.

Shell is also conceptualising how this technology could act, as an interface to inform local authorities and their contractors that a road is failing: as the road deforms, the pressure exerted by the vehicle would give out a higher electrical current which could then be converted into an indication of damage.

These innovations will demonstrate that it is possible for roads to contribute to sustainable development and to do more than just carry people and goods from A to B. However, route to market remains an issue for these types of products that cross more than one Government Department and work will need to be done for these types of product to become effective contributors to society.