Igor Yaryshkin

Igor Yaryshkin, a second-year master student at the SPbGASU Faculty of Civil Engineering, is solving a problem that literally lies under one's feet. Under the supervision of Aleksandr Simanovsky, Associate Professor at the Department of Roads, Bridges and Tunnels, he is working on his master's thesis "Methods for reducing roads rutting".

This work continues Igor’s bachelor’s final qualifying work, which in 2021 won the intra-university competition of the FQWs in the field of study “Civil engineering” and took third place in the students' FQWs competition “Megapolis Transport Infrastructure 2021”, dedicated to the Day of Road Workers. The competition was organized by the St Petersburg Transport Infrastructure Development Committee. In 2023, Igor Yaryshkin's project "Rutting and methods of it's preventing at the stage of repair and construction" won a grant at the All-Russian Engineering Competition.

According to the student, rutting, like any deformation, occurs when several external factors are combined, including the nature and degree of loads exerted by cars, climatic conditions, especially air temperature and soil moisture, and internal factors determined by the physical and mechanical characteristics of the road structures, such as shear resistance, the degree of compaction of the pavement layers, the characteristics and moisture level of the soil of the working layer.

In the Northwestern Federal District, rutting occurs on non-rigid road surfaces with coagulation structures, namely, with the use of asphalt concrete based on a bituminous binder. Therefore, in his diploma, Igor Yaryshkin proposed a structure with a layer of cement concrete at the base.

“Asphalt has a coagulation structure, while concrete has a monolithic structure. Asphalt breaks down faster, but is much more maintainable, concrete is more reliable, but it is very problematic to repair. In addition, before the start of operation, the concrete needs to stand at rest for 28 days, which greatly delays the work. However, it is possible to build high-quality roads that combine the strength and durability of concrete and the maintainability of asphalt concrete,” Igor is sure.

In the autumn of 2022, the student conducted full-scale measurements in Tver and found out that an excess rut is formed even when using high-frame mixes with a significant content of crushed stone in the acceleration and deceleration zones. This contradicted the generally accepted opinion that rutting caused by structural destruction of soils can be prevented at the design and survey stage, and residual plastic deformations of asphalt concrete can be avoided through the introduction and application of new GOSTs, high-frame mixtures and polymer binders. Further research established the theoretical basis for eliminating rutting using asphalt recycling techniques and proposed an alternative design option in areas of increased rutting, designed to stop the development of extreme ruts.

The master student's plans include continuing the research during his PhD studies.