Research Article
Reliable Laboratory Tests: A Prerequisite for the Design of
High-Quality Slurry Surfacing Mixtures
Alexandra Destr´ ee , Stefan Vansteenkiste , Tine Tanghe , and Jo¨ elle De Visscher
Belgian Road Research Centre (BRRC), Brussels, Belgium
Correspondence should be addressed to Alexandra Destr´ ee; a.destree@brrc.be
Received 2 December 2021; Accepted 18 February 2022; Published 22 April 2022
Academic Editor: Andrea Grilli
Copyright © 2022 Alexandra Destr´ ee et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Surface treatment with slurry surfacing is a quick and cost-effective technique to restore the condition and performance of a road surface,
compared with the replacement of the wearing course. It is therefore not surprising that cities and municipalities, faced with increasingly
tight budgets, choose slurry surfacing to maintain their roads. A slurry surfacing with good performance and a long service life requires,
above all, a well formulated mixture and a good control of the execution quality. Slurry surfacing could then even be considered for
ultrathin wearing courses on new pavements. From 2016 to 2020, the Belgian Road Research Centre (BRRC) was engaged in a 4-year
research project called BeP2S (Better Performing Slurry Surfacing) financially supported by the Belgian Bureau for Standardization
(NBN). e project focussed on laboratory testing, gathering data and field experience, assessing the link between laboratory and field
performance, and the mix design process. is paper is dedicated to the European test methods of the EN 12274 series (“Slurry
surfacing–Test methods”), as well as some alternative test methods, which were evaluated (complexity, relevance for the mix design
process, ...) and improved in terms of test conditions, precision, and discriminating power. Five performance-related tests proved to
have sufficient ability to discriminate between mixtures with variations in mix design. Recommendations were made for the ranges
within which the laboratory test results should fall in order for the slurry surfacing to perform well.
1. Introduction and Background
Slurry surfacing techniques are used to maintain and extend
the service life of existing pavements through restoring char-
acteristics such as skid resistance and imperviousness, using
little resources and with less traffic disruption. Slurry surfacing
includes slurry sealing and microsurfacing [1–4]. Slurry is a
cold mixture consisting of a well-graded mineral aggregate
blend, emulsion (which may be modified with polymer), water,
and, where appropriate, additives (cement, breaking retardant,
etc.). Slurry surfacing is proportioned, mixed, and uniformly
laid on-site at ambient temperature, using mobile machinery.
e mix is evenly spread in one or two layers, with thicknesses
slightly greater than the maximum aggregate size. e slurry
surfacing shall be applied over a properly prepared surface to
guarantee adequate long-term performance (resistance to
abrasion, ravelling, bleeding, etc.) [5–8].
Slurry surfacing offers a wide range of economic and
technical advantages, as well as social and environmental
ones, when compared to repaving the wearing course with
hot mix asphalt [9]:
(i) less material and energy consumption during
construction (with respect to hot mix asphalt);
(ii) lower fuel consumption in the use stage (less
greenhouse gas emissions), thanks to lower rolling
resistance;
(iii) road safety and comfort maintained constant at a
high level;
(iv) less traffic disruption by road works (usually faster
application times than alternative conventional
approaches);
(v) better and safer working conditions for road
workers (particularly on very hot summer days), etc.
Since this technology requires less material resources, is
cold produced, and laid at low thickness, the direct cost price
is low.
Hindawi
Advances in Materials Science and Engineering
Volume 2022, Article ID 7157233, 20 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/7157233