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A pothole is a depression in a road surface, usually
asphalt pavement A road surface (British English), or pavement (American English), is the durable surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic, such as a road or walkway. In the past, gravel road surfaces, hoggin, cob ...
, where traffic has removed broken pieces of the pavement. It is usually the result of water in the underlying soil structure and traffic passing over the affected area. Water first weakens the underlying soil; traffic then fatigues and breaks the poorly supported asphalt surface in the affected area. Continued traffic action ejects both asphalt and the underlying soil material to create a hole in the pavement.


Formation

According to the US Army Corps of Engineers's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, pothole formation requires two factors to be present at the same time: water and traffic. Water weakens the soil beneath the pavement while traffic applies the loads that stress the pavement past the breaking point. Potholes form progressively from fatigue of the road surface which can lead to a precursor failure pattern known as crocodile (or alligator) cracking. Eventually, chunks of pavement between the fatigue cracks gradually work loose, and may then be plucked or forced out of the surface by continued wheel loads to create a pothole. In areas subject to freezing and thawing, frost heaving can damage a pavement and create openings for water to enter. In the
spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a h ...
, thaw of pavements accelerates this process when the thawing of upper portions of the soil structure in a pavement cannot drain past still-frozen lower layers, thus saturating the supporting soil and weakening it. Potholes can grow to several feet in width, though they usually only develop to depths of a few inches. If they become large enough, damage to tires, wheels, and vehicle suspensions is liable to occur. Serious road accidents can occur as a direct result, especially on those roads where vehicle speeds are greater. Potholes may result from four main causes: :1. Insufficient pavement thickness to support traffic during freeze/thaw periods without localized failures :2. Insufficient drainage :3. Failures at utility trenches and castings ( manhole and drain casings) :4. Pavement defects and cracks left unmaintained and unsealed so as to admit moisture and compromise the structural integrity of the pavement File:Asphalt deterioration.jpg, Crocodile cracking showing moisture seepage, a sign of a weakened soil structure beneath the failed asphalt File:Pothole.jpg, Detail of pothole, showing presence of water in soil structure, on a road in
Montréal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-p ...
, Québec File:Newport Whitepit Lane pot hole.JPG, Example of a pothole reappearing on a newly patched roadway, also showing the transition between crocodile cracking and the pothole, with water dried up, in a road on the
Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Is ...
Image:Banbury's Bretch Hill Pothole, 2010.png, Small potholes, showing isolated failures of the pavement and its subsurface structure, in a road in Banbury, UK File:Dirtroadpotholes.JPG, Potholes on an unpaved road in Sweden


Prevention

The following steps can be taken to avoid pothole formation in existing pavements: :1. Surveying of pavements for risk factors :2. Providing adequate drainage structures :3. Preventive maintenance :4. Utility cut management :5. Sealing Asphalt Cracks


Survey of pavements

At-risk pavement are more often local roads with lower structural standards and more complicating factors, like underground utilities, than major arteries. Pavement condition monitoring can lead to timely preventive action. Surveys address pavement distresses, which both diminishes the strength of the asphalt layer and admits water into the pavement, and effective drainage of water from within and around the pavement structure.


Drainage

Drainage structures, including ditching and storm sewers are essential for removing water from pavements. Avoiding other risk factors with good construction includes well-draining base and sub-base soils that avoid frost action and promote drying of the soil structure. Adequate crowns promote drainage to the sides. Good crack control prevents water penetration into the pavement soil structure.


Preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance adds maintaining pavement structural integrity with thickness and continuity to the mix of preventing water penetration and promoting water migration away from the roadway.


Utility cut management

Eaton, et al., advocate a permitting process for utility cuts with specifications that avoid loss of structural continuity of pavements and flaws or failures that allow water penetration.


Sealing Asphalt Cracks

According to the US Federal Highway Administration, 70% of unsealed cracks become potholes within 3 years. Sealing the cracks through asphalt crack filling can help prevent potholes and further pavement damage.


Repair

Pothole patching methods may be either temporary or semi-permanent. Temporary patching is reserved for weather conditions that are not favorable to a more permanent solution and usually uses a cold mix asphalt patching compound placed in an expedient manner to temporarily restore pavement smoothness. Semi-permanent patching uses more care in reconstructing the perimeter of the failed area to blend with the surrounding pavement and usually employs a hot-mix asphalt fill above replacement of appropriate base materials. The
Federal Highway Administration The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program ...
(FHWA) offers an overview of best practices which includes several repair techniques; throw-and-roll, semi-permanent, spray injection, and edge seal. The FHWA suggests the best patching techniques, at times other than winter, are spray injection, throw-and-roll, semi-permanent, or edge seal procedures. In winter, the throw-and-roll technique may be the only available option. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...
offers similar methods for the repair of potholes.


Materials

Asphaltic patch materials consist of a binder and aggregate that come in two broad categories, hot mix and cold mix. Hot mixes are used by some agencies, they are produced at local asphalt plants. The FHWA manual cites three types of cold mixes, those produced by a local asphalt plant, either 1) using the available aggregate and binder or 2) according to specifications set by the agency that will use the mix. The third type is a proprietary cold mix, which is manufactured to an advertised standard.


Throw-and-roll repair

The FHWA manual cites the throw-and-roll method as the most basic method, best used as a temporary repair under conditions when it is difficult to control the placement of material, such as winter-time. It consists of: # Placing the hot or cold patch material into a pothole # Compacting the patch with a vehicle, such as a truck # Achieving a crown on the compacted patch of between 3 and 6 mm This method is widely used due to its simplicity and speed, especially as an expedient method when the material is placed under unfavorable conditions of water or temperature. It can also be employed at times when the pothole is dry and clean with more lasting results. Eaton, et al., noted that the failure rate of expedient repairs is high and that they can cost as much as five times the cost of properly done repairs. They advocate this type of repair only when weather conditions prevent proper techniques. Researchers from the
University of Minnesota Duluth The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) is a public university in Duluth, Minnesota. It is part of the University of Minnesota system and offers 16 bachelor's degrees in 88 majors, graduate programs in 25 different fields, and a two-year pro ...
have tested mixing asphalt with iron ore containing
magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With ...
which is then heated using ferromagnetic resonance (using microwaves at a specific frequency) to heat the mixed asphalt. The mixture used a compound of between 1% and 2% magnetite. The group discovered that material could be heated for a patch to in approximately ten minutes which then applied a more effective repair and drove out moisture which improved adhesion. File:Pothole throw-and-roll material placement.png, Throw-and-roll pothole repair procedure—material placement File:Pothole throw-and roll compaction of patch.png, Throw-and-roll pothole repair procedure—compaction of patch


Semi-permanent repair

The FHWA manual cites the semi-permanent repair method as one of the best for repairing potholes, short of full-depth roadway replacement. It consists of: :1. Removing water and debris from the pothole :2. Making clean cuts along the sides of prospective patch area to assure that vertical sides of the repair are in sound pavement (Eaton, et al., recommend a bituminous tack coat in the open cavity, prior to placement of patch material.) :3. Placing the hot or cold patch mix material :4. Compacting the patch with a device that is smaller than the patch area, e.g. vibratory rollers or a vibratory plate While this repair procedure provides durable results, it requires more labor and is more equipment-intensive than the throw-and-roll or the spray-injection procedure. File:Pothole semi-permanent repair cut edges.png, Semi-permanent pothole repair procedure—straightening edges using hand-held pavement saw File:Pothole semi-permanent repair vibratory compactor.png, Semi-permanent pothole repair procedure—compaction using vibratory-plate compactor File:Man on roller, Campsie Road, Omagh - geograph.org.uk - 1715261.jpg, Semi-permanent pothole repair procedure—small vibratory compactor for larger repairs


Spray-injection repair

The FHWA manual cites the spray-injection procedure as an efficient alternative to semi-permanent repair. It requires specialized equipment, however. It consists of: :1. Blowing water and debris from the pothole :2. Spraying a tack coat of binder on the sides and bottom of the pothole :3. Blowing asphalt and aggregate into the pothole :4. Covering the patched area with a layer of aggregate This procedure requires no compaction after the cover aggregate has been placed. File:Pothole spray-injection equipment.png, Spray-injection device for pothole repair—truck and trailer unit in the
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File:Operation nids-de-poule.JPG, Spray-injection device for pothole repair—all-in-one repair unit in
Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
, which allows the operator to work from the comfort and safety of the cab File:Pothole patching.jpg, Spray-injection device for pothole repair—all-in-one repair unit in the
Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...


Edge seal repair

The FHWA manual cites the edge seal method as an alternative to the above techniques. It consists of: :1. Following the "throw-and-roll" steps :2. After the repaired section has dried, placing a ribbon of asphaltic tack material on top of the patch edge, overlapping the pavement and the patch :3. Placing sand on the tack material to prevent tracking by vehicle tires In this procedure, waiting for any water to dry may require a second visit to place the tack coat. The tack material prevents water from getting through the edge of the patch and helps bond the patch to the surrounding pavement.


Efficacy of repair methods

An FHWA-sponsored study determined that the "throw-and-roll technique proved as effective as the semi-permanent procedure when the two procedures were compared directly, using similar materials". It also found the throw-and-roll procedure to be generally more cost-effective when using quality materials. It further found that spray-injection repairs were as effective as control patches, depending on the expertise of the equipment operator.


Costs to the public

The American Automobile Association estimated in the five years prior to 2016 that 16 million drivers in the United States have suffered damage from potholes to their vehicle including tire punctures, bent wheels, and damaged suspensions with a cost of $3 billion a year. In India, between 2015 and 2017, an average of 3,000 people per year were killed in accidents involving potholes. Britain has estimated that the cost of fixing all roads with potholes in the country would cost £12 billion.


Reporting

Some jurisdictions offer websites or
mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
s for pothole-reporting. These allow citizens to report potholes and other
road hazard Road debris, a form of road hazard, is debris on or off a road. Road debris includes substances, materials, and objects that are foreign to the normal roadway environment. Debris may be produced by vehicular or non-vehicular sources, but in all ...
s, optionally including a photograph and GPS coordinates. It is estimated there are 55 million potholes in the United States. The self-proclaimed pothole capital,
Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city an ...
, Alberta, Canada reportedly spends $4.8 million on 450,000 potholes annually, as of 2015. India has historically lost over 3,000 people per year to accidents caused by potholes. This situation has engendered citizen movement to address the problem. In the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
, more than half a million pot holes were reported in 2017, an increase of 44% on the 2015 figure. There are processes in place to report potholes at different levels of jurisdiction. The process for claiming compensation varies by jurisdiction.


In popular culture

Potholes have been commented on both in various media.


Visual art

Two artists, Jim Bachor of Chicago and Baadal Nanjundaswamy of
Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
, India, have used artwork as a commentary on potholes by placing mosaics (depicting ice cream in various manifestations) or sculpture (in the form of a crocodile) in potholes. Elsewhere, activists in Russia used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffiti artist painted images of penises around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.


Song

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
song " A Day in the Life" references potholes.
John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
wrote the song's final verse inspired by a ''Far & Near'' news brief, in the same 17 January edition of the ''Daily Mail'' that had inspired the first two verses. Under the headline "The holes in our roads", the brief stated: "There are 4,000 holes in the road in Blackburn, Lancashire, or one twenty-sixth of a hole per person, according to a council survey. If Blackburn is typical, there are two million holes in Britain's roads and 300,000 in London."


Television

In the Seinfeld episode
The Pothole "The Pothole" is the 150th episode of the sitcom ''Seinfeld''. This was the 16th episode for the eighth season. It aired on February 20, 1997. In the episode, Jerry is unwilling to kiss his girlfriend after she unknowingly brushes her teeth with a ...
, George discovers that he has lost his keys, including a commemorative Phil Rizzuto keychain that says "Holy Cow" when activated. He then retraces his steps, and returns to a street where he had jumped over a pothole, which is now filled in with asphalt. The "Holy Cow" phrase is heard when a car runs over it.


See also

* Asphalt concrete * Road surface


References


External links


Federal Highway Administration Manual of Practice for Pothole Repair
{{Authority control Road construction Road hazards Holes