INDIANAPOLIS — As the weather rapidly changes this week - we had -11°, -40 wind chill in some parts of Indiana, and now a warming trend this weekend - RTV6 wanted to show you how quickly asphalt can crack. RTV6 put one sample in a chamber set to -23° and another in 40°."
"In the cold temperature, the asphalt gets very stiff and brittle," Reyhaneh Rahbar, a Purdue University researcher, said. "But in a hot temperature, the flexibility of asphalt material increases."
Purdue University researchers, who study pavement design, say warm weather allows the material to become more flexible. But with the sudden-changing weather, when water gets in - it freezes and widens the crack.
Thus, causing potholes in the roads.
"Before the snow came, the roads were pretty nice coming back from break it was nice to see that but after the snow and a few snow plows come through, you can see some of the potholes getting bad again," Rahbar said.
This is something drivers are already noticing, but can expect much more of after this weekend.
As for the engineers, they'll continue working to create better asphalt mixtures that allow for more flexibility.
"It's research," Rahbaar said. "It's ongoing research so we don't have any final solution for that yet but we are working and hopefully in the future we can get better and better asphalt mixtures for cracking."
Right now the city has about 1,300 potholes that need filling.
If you come across one, you can report it to the mayor's action center at 317-327-4622.
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