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TSA News > Award winning innovation hits the road
Award winning innovation hits the road
1 May 2018
Sami Bitumen Technologies recently won an industry innovation award for developing a new way to ensure that crumb rubber-modified (CRM) binder for road sealing could be transported and used up to 1,100 kilometres from its point of manufacture with no degradation in its quality and usability.
Now, just in 2018, they have supplied over 6 million litres of pre-blended CRM binder for roads projects across south-east Queensland.
The challenge SAMI overcame related to the tendency for crumb rubber particles to settle at the bottom of tanker caring the binder mix over any major distance. Their new technology has seen the range of operation, from the point of mixing, increase from no more than 300 kilometres to the impressive over 1000kms.
Having won the 2017 National Australian Asphalt Pavement Association (AAPA) Innovation Award SAMI is now working with Queensland’s Department of Transport and Main Roads, TSA and AARB further research that hopes to deliver expanded use of crumb rubber in spray seals and in both open graded and gap graded asphalt nationally.
In addition, a number of test applications have been executed as part of Queensland road projects. Projects that, it is hoped, will provided evidence of the benefits of using crumbed rubber products and that will lead to pilot specifications and more applications in Queensland and elsewhere in Australia.
The research and the practical applications by SAMI are expected to play a major role in creating a local market for Queensland end-of-life tyres and to point to a nationwide use that can make a major impact on the annual end-of-life tyre challenge.
A detailed story on the Sami Bitumen Technologies crumbed rubber work can be found on the Roads and Infrastructure online magazine at: