CONCRETE VS ASPHALT ROADS IN GHANA.
The vice president of Ghana H.E Mahamudu Bawumia has initiate a big debate in road construction 18 Jul 2017 · At least it's taken Ghana 52 years to figure out, asphalt concrete or concrete road is the way to go. ... The Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who made the announcement said the Akufo-Addo administration believes ...
Source : AUGUSTINE K
Ghana Ready For Concrete Roads: Why Did It Take Her So Long?
Gordon Offin-Amaniampong
At least it’s taken Ghana 52 years to figure out, asphalt concrete or concrete road is the way to go. The nation opened its first concrete highway to traffic in November 1965 to connect the Harbour City Tema to Accra Ghana’s capital city.
The landmark highway also known Tema Motorway (which is 19 km or 12mi) was modeled after the Autobahn in Germany. Since then the country has been stuck with asphalt bitumen, Coal tar as it’s commonly known in Ghana.
What do they say: Better late than never, right?
It seems thelong wait isnow over. And the issue is no more about which one to go for --Concrete roads or Asphalt roads. It’s also not about which one lasts longer or is better. Asphalt concrete (commonly called asphalt, blacktop, or pavement in North America, and tarmac or bitumen macadam in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parking lots, airports etc.
On Saturday 15 July, Ghana’s cabinet approved a proposal to use the latter product instead of asphalt and plans are afoot to pilot the product on Tema Steel Road. The industrial city , this writer says will be first to see Ghana’s concrete highway since the Tema motorway built in the early 1960’s by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Ghana’s first president..
The Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who made the announcement said the Akufo-Addo administration believes constructing concrete roads would save the country from spending more, as compared to the construction of asphalt and bitumen roads.
Well road experts will tell you no roads last forever. This is because in spite of their projections say 20-40 years they’ll at some point during usage require either maintenance or repair be it asphalt or concrete roads. Roads are like any other element they have their natural cycles or life span if you like. The problem we have in Ghana and I believe across the continent is perhaps not the asphalt or concrete per se, but the value for money which has often eluded us.
Every year billions of dollars (tax payers’ monies) are sunk into road constructionsbut the results leave much to be desired. The roads simply don’t last long. Some last for months, and perhaps the majority of them wouldn’t stand a decade without showing signs of failure. Pathetic to state that some even get washed off in weeks as many of them fail prematurely and it is the frequency of their sudden deterioration that get on people’s nerves. Indeed some of them might develop potholes and sinkholes that could swallow a fatling cow or Tico car.
So what really accounts for the fast deterioration of our roads?
Climate determines what kind of road one must construct and material s to use. It’s understood concrete highways are better suited for tropical regions like Ghana. But they don’t work better in snowy or icy areas which probably explain why my home state Washington State is noweverting to bitumen or asphalt pavement. It’s easy to remove and cheaper as compared to concrete when the roads deteriorate. That notwithstanding many countries today are going concrete.
Of course, I’m not an engineer but my little research into the field writing this piece has taught me this: There are three common causes of pavement failures. They’re Poor Soil, localised Void and poor design and fabrication. Time and space may not allow me to discuss them in detail. But in brief, if the soil is bad no matter the quality of the product it would end up bad.
What’s a bad soil? Clayey soils are most unfavourable in road construction. Also, if the soil that lies on top of the pavement has structural issues it’s regarded as bad soil. High water table will lead to run off or erosion and will eventually wash the pavement away. And the way to prevent that is building drainage systems.
Localised void on the other hand is basically the sinkholes and the potholes you detect in the course of the construction. They say, a stich in time saves nine. The earlier you fix it the better, it becomes cost effective and you’dget value for money. Last but not least, poor design and fabrication. And as the name suggests if the engineering works are done poorly the pavement will fail woefully and you’ll be back to square one.
Doesn’t that sound familiar? This is a typical case in Ghana. Step out from your homes and take a look at the roads in your communities.They’re just milking us. In appropriate cost cutting during the initial design and installation either the property owner insisted on cheap options, the engineer didn’t know enough to put in the right materials or the construction company cut corners where they shouldn’t have.
Ultimately, where the construction requires six inches base course they will put three. Of course, the ministers, the chief directors and quantity surveyors will all take their 15 per cent shares and what would be left could not nothing but poor roads. This in part is the main bane of our poor road networks. Yes, the freebies (10 per cent tips) lead to shoddy works as contractors would not put the required materials to stabilize the foundation.
Asphalt Versus Concrete — Which Is Stronger?
Concrete road's life can range somewhere from 20-40 years. But the annual cost of maintenance for, asphalt road (pavement) for example is about four to seven times higher. This saves one long-term on repair and maintenance.
Ove the year’s road experts have discounted the common belief that concrete pavements are stronger than asphalt pavements (bitumen or blacktop). They say: “the reason for this misconception is that comparisons are not made on equivalent designs. The traffic-carrying ability of asphalt or concrete pavement is approximately the same for each inch of pavement thickness. “
A typical 3,000-psi concrete slab would also be assigned a structural number of 3.0, per inch of thickness. Therefore, a 4-inch concrete pavement and a 4-inch asphalt pavement have the same load-carrying capabilities. This answers the question.
According to engineers asphalt and concrete will provide the same traffic-carrying strength when the same thickness is used. For instance, a pavement with a Structural Numbers (SN) of 10.0 will always be twice as strong as pavement with a SN of 5.0, regardless of the material used.
In April this year (during Easter, it’s understood, theCharismatic Bishops’ Conference proposedfor roads in the country to be constructed using concrete. The Bishops also urged the government to increase road tolls to a flat rate of $1 as an effective measure of raising revenue for various road projects in the country.
The Vice President, Dr. Bawumia, who took a keen interest in the proposal said at the dedication of a Harvest International Ministries temple in Accra that government had had many discussions on the matter and had also involved Parliament for the discussion. In that meeting he added cabinet took a decision to make the country move away from asphalt roads to the construction of concrete roads.
“Why is it that we are not building our roads with concrete and rather doing all this asphalt, bitumen stuff which gets washed away after about 2 seasons. If you look at Tema motorway which was built with concrete, it is lasting almost 50 years.
We started that discussion, it is a simple idea but full of wisdom. I checked and realized that in India, they have the policy to build only concrete road and it works out to be cheaper. We have been discussing this as recently as last week in Parliament,” the vice president wondered.
We will consider doing this and it will be transformational because as for laying concrete, we can all do it in Ghana. You don’t need to get anybody to come and lay concrete for you. Any mason from any village can come and lay the concrete and go on.”
Indeed the Tema Motorway built over 50 years ago saw its major rehabilitation works in August2009.Part of the highway was reconstructed using epoxy cement. And it took engineers and road contractor eight weeks to complete work.
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Ghana Ready For Concrete Roads: Why Did It Take Her So Long?