Visiting lecture: Perspectives on the use of alternative material for low noise pavements: Towards a Zero Waste Society

Accumulation of waste is one of the significant challenges in this century. An essential
step toward a zero-waste society is reducing and reusing waste. The asphalt community
is taking important steps to make progress in this direction: on the one hand, reusing
reclaimed asphalt and; on the other hand, using waste and marginal materials as a
substitute for virgin materials. It was shown that using waste and marginal materials in
roads has the potential to reduce CO2, energy demand, and costs. At the same time,
such alternative materials used in pavements could achieve a similar or even better
performance as conventional materials. However, the data is mostly from laboratory
tests as the use of these alternative materials has a varied technology readiness level
(TRL) worldwide.

The urban environment faces many challenges; excessive exposure to noise and
production of waste are two important aspects. According to the Swiss federal office for
the environment, one in seven people in Switzerland (1.1 million people) are exposed to
noise levels that exceed the exposure limit specified in the Noise.

This talk will focus on the use of alternative materials for low noise pavements with a
focus on two Swiss national projects, demonstrating the viability of using polyethylene,
crumb rubber, steel slag and recycled concrete aggregates for road construction. Using
a multi-scale evaluation method and a chemo-mechanical approach, it is demonstrated
that the design and performance of roads with alternative materials have their own
unique challenges. Determination of the sustainability considering the whole life cycle
has to take into account the waste management policy of the particular region making
geographical considerations important in determining optimum solutions.

Dr. Lily Poulikakos

Dr. Poulikakos received her B.S in architectural engineering from the university of Colorado, Boulder USA, M.S. in civil engineering from university of Illinois USA and PhD in civil engineering from ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

She is currently a senior scientist at Empa, the Swiss federal laboratories for materials science and technology. Her research focus is on using multi scale characterization
methods to study innovative bituminous materials chemically and mechanically with a focus on low noise pavements and the use of waste and marginal materials for roads.

She is a leading member of RILEM as former deputy chair of the technical committee TC-231 NBM on nano bituminous materials and TC-252 CMB chemo mechanical characterization of bituminous materials and currently chair of TC-279 WMR on waste and marginal materials for roads.

Dr. Poulikakos is the author of over 100 publications in peer reviewed journals and editor of Elsevier journal Construction and Building Materials CBM.