RUBBER ROAD SURFACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19965, 6 December 1926, Page 17

RUBBER ROAD SURFACE

LATEST EXPERIMENT. VENEER ON TERRA-COTTA BLOCKS. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) LONDON, October 11. An interesting experiment in road formation is being made in a street which has some of the heaviest traffic in London. India-rubber blocks have been tried already, hut apparently without much success, for in one locality they were taken up and wood blocks were substituted. In the present case rubber is again being used, but only as a veneer to the top of the block. The experiment is in New Bridge street, at the approach to Blackfriars Bridge. . , Heavy terra-cotta blocks, lOJin by Sin, are laid as a base to hold a superimposed rubber cap, |in in thickness. The rubber is very hard, and is put on by a process which, it is claimed, will withstand the pounding-and-spreading-force of the heaviest traffic. The blocks with these rubber caps are laid on a 12in concrete bed, with a cushion of sand Jin thick. They are being set in by means of joints, composed of a special bitumen and rubber mixture. Known as Gaisman blocks, the experiment is being carried out at the cost of the Universal Rubber Paviovs (Manchester, 1923), Ltd., by arrangement with the City Corporation. The company will maintain the surface for a period of two years, and, if satisfactory to the corporation, will then enter into a maintenance contract. MOST DRASTIC TEST. Mr L. Gaisman stated that this is the first practical public test of the invention. In Manchester, however, there was a private artificial test, in which a 13-ton steam lorry was sent over a stretch of the paving 1000 times in a day. The granite sides of the road were destroyed, but the blocks and the rubber held. The Guildhall experts think that the New Bridge street test will be the most drastic which could possibly be devised, for the traffic to and from Blackfriars Bridge is the heaviest in the City, and probably in London. The rubber, it is claimed, absorbs vibration, and this is of great importance both to vehicles and to property. It is grooved .to prevent skidding, and will, it is expected, be more silent than either wood or asphalt. A representative of the Leeds Fireclay Company said that terra-cotta was being extensively used in building in London. Its success or failure for road work would be watched with deep interest. That company had considered such possibilities for some time. “After all,” he said, “it is but a return to old ideas, for the Romans used terra-cotta extensively. Roman tiles are, for the most part, terracotta, while in the Roman pavements so often dug up in London that material predominates.”