D.Sc.(Tech) Pentti Lahtinen, Ramboll Finland Oy

M.Sc. (Eng) Seppo Kolkka, Finnish Road Enterprise

Lic.Sc.(Tech) Aino Maijala, Ramboll Finland Oy

The project Kukkia Circlet is about the demonstration of sustainable, environmentally friendlymethods and processes to renovate and maintain secondary road network. The project innovationsare based on earlier R&D in Finland include new types of road construction materials that are basedon industrial by-products, different types of applications and structures for the new materials, new types of equipment for the mixing of the materials, and in-detail-controlled construction processes to ascertain the target quality and economic benefits of the renovation.

The applications based on the by-products include stabilisation of existing road courses, structural courses to compensate for the conventional stone courses, a groundwater protection structure on the side of a road and light traffic paths. The society will benefit from the sustainable construction system and durable quality of the secondary roads, economical and efficient maintenance of the secondary road network, and increasing safety of the pedestrians and cyclists by the side of the narrow roads.

The project is being co-financed by EU Life-Environment (Life02 ENV/FIN/000329), Finnish Road Administration and the partners.

  The main problems in the background of the project include

- the constant inferior quality and frost damage of the gravel roads because of the high
costs of effective conventional renovation;

- the dangerous narrow road sides for the cyclists and pedestrians in the rural and 
sparsely populated areas because of the high costs of conventional light traffic path 
structures;

- the high volumes of non-renewable stone resources exploited for the conventional road maintenance and renovation;

- the environmental problems in connection with the exploitation of natural stone
resources from rocks, hills or eskers; and

- the increasing societal and legislative constraints to the exploitation of natural stone
resources.

Kukkia Circlet will combine all the know-how that have been obtained earlier during many different types of R&D projects on the use of industrial by-products in road construction.

The project aims at showing that there are available new, controlled, sustainable and efficient road construction processes that benefit the different European societies with different types of problems to maintain and renovate secondary roads.

The leading partner and co-ordinator of Kukkia Circlet is the Finnish Road Enterprise. Other partners are Luopioinen Municipality, Council of Tampere Region, Finncao Oy, Georgia-Pacific Finland Oy and Kemira Chemicals Oy. The main part of testing and follow-up as well as the planning of the new structures for the pilots have been subcontracted from SCC Viatek Oy’s R&D-laboratory SGT.

Kukkia Circlet project will test the innovative processes to renovate gravel roads, and to construct groundwater protection and light traffic path structures on the sides of the gravel roads. The special focus will be on the logistics, mixing and other work methods. The project will also assess the long-term properties, environmental impact and costs of the new applications in comparison with the conventional road structures. The activities involve several tasks and pilot constructions during 2002 and 2003.

Information about the progress of the project and the project results will be spread through the information media, with help of web-pages for the project, and with a Guide publicationthat summarises all the know-how for the new renovation process and the special structures.

The pilots involve following tests and applications:

A. Stabilisation of existing old structural courses with help of binder admixtures based on fly ash. This will improve the bearing capacity of the gravel road.

B. Construction of structural road courses with fibre-ashes. This will solve the problems of heavy frost damage of the gravel road.

C. Construction of a groundwater protection structure using fibreclay-mixtures. This will become a cost-effective hydraulic barrier alternative.

D. Construction of new alternatives for light traffic paths with fibre-ashes and geo-reinforcements.

The new and cost-effective alternatives will improve the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians on the narrow secondary roads in rural and sparsely populated districts. The new alternatives involve

- a floating structure on a soft peat soil

- a light structure on a clay soil

- applications that extend the width of the road slope

Application A has been implemented during the summer 2002 (see pictures in Annex 1). The other applications will be implemented during the summer 2003.

The outcome will be the new sustainable methods and processes for the improvement of the secondary road network in Europe. In the long term the exploitation of the project results will significantly reduce the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources, the amount of waste and the need for deposit sites in Europe.

The results can also be used in the work of European standardisation and legislation concerning the use of industrial by-products in construction. The dissemination will be supported by videos and the Guide publication that have been produced during the project. Also, a workshop will be arranged in Tampere in 2004.

Budgeted total costs: 1.253.630 euro

LIFE-ENV grant: 626.815 euro

Beneficiary: Finnish Road Enterprise/ West-Finland region/ Tampere unit

Duration: 37 months (1.12.2001-31.12.2004)

Please, follow our web-sites and the information on events. At first the main part of the web-sites

will be in Finnish, but little by little we will add also English pages.