In the United States, heat is intensifying, which we have not seen in years, posing serious challenges not only to the human body, but also to infrastructure. As previously reported, San Francisco’s train tracks have melted and a train derailed after the first serious heat wave of the summer. However, this is not the only point in the country where the infrastructure has been damaged by the heat.
In several places, the daytime temperature that rose to 37-38°C caused serious damage to the highway structure, and the concrete cover wrote to the road surface. Vezess.hu. And in the eastern part of Texas, the asphalt itself has begun to melt Houston Chronicle.
Similar situations can often occur in areas where such heat was not previously expected, even in the summer. The problem mainly lies in the sections of the road where the concrete elements are the main construction elements of the roof. They consist of large concrete blocks 4-5 meters long and 3-4 meters wide. As temperatures fluctuate, these large concrete slabs expand in hot weather and contract in cold weather.
All this is calculated in the design, and if there is no severe weather, then even motorists will not notice it. Now, however, the heat wave has caused a level of expansion that even experts hadn’t expected. As a result, the blocks are pressed into each other, and since there is no room for further growth, they protrude from their original place.
