Modieslab Innovative Prefabricated Modular Concrete Slab For Concrete Roads and Airfields

The Dutch Federal Highway Administration introduced the project “Roads to the Future” in the year 2000. Amongst other innovations, the MODULAR ROAD, was one of the sub-projects. In a contest several parties in the roudbuilding business were asked to develop an idea for a modular type of road that had to fullfill the following demands: • Silent; • Fast to construct and reconstruct; • High driving comfort; • Low maintenance costs; • Safe under all weather conditions. In this contest, a joint venture of three companies, BETONSON, Heijmans and ARCADIS, Introduced the MODIESLAB-concept. The name MODIESLAB stands for Modular, Intelligent, Energetic and Slab. The Modieslab is built up as a prefabricated concrete slab eventually supported bij a subbase or a pilefoundation. The slabs have a porous-concrete top layer to reduce the trafic noise. Inside of the slab are situated tube-banks for temperature-controll all over the year. Inside of the slab are spacings to install intelligent functions as weighing modula, counting of verhicles, speed-controll etcetera. Choosing for the prefabricated road slabs a very fast construction as well as reconstruction of the road is possible (100 meters per hour!!). This concept-design was selected to be constructed on a test section on by-pass of the A50 Highway in the Netherlands. This section has been observed and tested during two years on the following aspects: • Eveness of the road surface; • Roughness of the roadsurface; • Abrasion test on the road-suface; • Water transport capacity of the porous top-layers; • Noise reduction, compared with standard road surfaces; • Bearing-capacity of the construction under heavy-traffic-conditions; • Functioning of the temperature-controll-system; • Speed of replacing slabs; • Tests with burning vehicles; The results of the tests showed that this concept fullfills all the demands of a future road. The Highwayadministration intends to build a full-scale highway-section in the next years.