If left unattended, potholes contribute a major threat to the safety of road users as well as their vehicles. Unfortunately, pothole repair is not an easy task. Most of the commonly-employed quick fixes only provide a temporary solution. Standard pothole repair often involves cutting the pothole into shape and size in order to accommodate a compactor. While this method lasts longer than simply filling the pothole, it could be highly cost-intensive and it renders the road unusable for a period.
American Road Patch is a patented innovation that promises a quick, effective, and long-lasting method of fixing potholes. The patch was developed over 6 years ago and is currently being tested on all kinds of roads including state county roads and driveways. According to the manufacturers, the performance has been phenomenal.
Design and Features
American Road Patch is made from a combination of high-quality asphalt, polymer, and geo-synthetic fiberglass. When properly installed, the patch forms a waterproof seal that effectively covers potholes as well as cracks on road surfaces. The patch comes with an adhesive backing that bonds to both asphalt and concrete road surfaces.
According to the manufacturers, American Road Patch works so well because it provides a perfect seal, immediately becoming a part of any road it is placed on. The seal effectively prevents the penetration of water and maintains the integrity of the fillings. The same does not hold true for conventional pothole repair techniques. In the areas tested, American Road Patch has provided years of maintenance-free service. There’s little doubt that it’ll save a significant amount of time and money when compared with conventional pothole repair methods.
How to use
- Remove material from the repair site and fill the hole as well as the surrounding area with hot or cold asphalt fill mix
- Compact the fill mix such that the fill surface is slightly above or at par with the surface of the roadway
- The area the patch would be laid over should be free of salts, debris, dust, oils, or any other kind of dirt.
- Cut the patch such that it extends beyond the repair area by 4” on all sides. If the area to be covered requires two or more pieces of American Road Patch, ensure you apply at least 3” overlap while laying
- Remove the release-film and place the patch over the pothole. The patch immediately adheres to become a part of the permanent roadway
- If the ambient temperature is at or below 70 degrees Fahrenheit, you’ll need to torch the road surface around the pothole in order to activate the adhesive backing. Alternatively, you can apply the approved primer before laying the patch
If correctly installed, the manufacturers assure that the patch would bond permanently to the road surface for many years to come.
Applications
- Asides pothole repair, American Road Patch can be used for the following:
- Crack and joint sealing
- Utility cut sealing
- Manhole and utility surround
- Hiding or covering unused road markers
- Sealing distressed pavement
- Protecting speed bump edges
- Fixing uneven bridge joints
Pricing info
Saint-Gobain Adfors are the distributors for the American Road Patch. You can follow this link to learn more about American Road Patch and how to buy.
Startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential. Some startups become unicorns; that is privately held startup companies valued at over US$1 billion.
Actions
Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will begin market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate their business models. The startup process can take a long period of time (by some estimates, three years or longer), and hence sustaining effort is required. Over the long term, sustaining effort is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes. Having a business plan in place outlines what to do and how to plan and achieve an idea in the future. Typically, these plans outline the first 3 to 5 years of your business strategy.
Design principles
Models behind startups presenting as ventures are usually associated with design science. Design science uses design principles considered to be a coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct the company's backbone. For example, one of the initial design principles is "affordable loss".
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