Comparative Studies on Gel-Incorporated Flexible Pavement

The climatic changes we are currently experiencing are so drastic that the existing pavements are not able to keep up with them; among these, the floods are more severe as they occur more frequently than other hazards. Aerogel is a substance that is highly resistant to water. This paper presents the study of application of aerogel in bituminous pavement construction. Since silica-gel is having similar features, for comparison silica-gel modified pavement is created, which is used to compare the results obtained with the aerogel-incorporated bitumen pavement. The FEM analysis results of both silica-gel and aerogel-modified bitumen are compared with the standard bitumen pavement analysis results. Similarly, aerogel-incorporated concrete pavement model is created, and results are compared with the standard concrete pavement. The aerogel-incorporated pavement performs well compared to silica gel while maintaining the required strength required for the standard pavement.