Highway Marking Paints Essay

This report has been created as per the details of the letter received on 18th March from Morris Hordern, Senior Engineer of the Highways Department, and contains the results of the tests conducted by Proactive Consultants Inc. on all the available new highway paints. On the basis of our tests and in our professional opinion, Centrex’s new paint TL is the best option for highway marker painting. Highway Marking Paints 2 This project was carried out in order to test the suitability of the newly available range of highway marking paints which claim to be of better quality in terms of visibility, spraying characteristics and speed of drying. The marker painting was conducted between 12 a.m and 6 a.m. The following table documents the consolidated results of our study. The paints are lined up in the table on the basis of suitability, the best one being the first in the table. Paints that did not meet the minimum standards (as specified by ASTM D-711) of twenty minutes drying time, good spraying characteristics(as prescribed by Paint Manufacturers Association’s specification PMA-02-28H) and visibility of 7 and 6 after three months and six months of traffic wear respectively have been eliminated. Codes assigned to the paints on 25th March, 2010 (the start date of the tests) have been used to eliminate any chance of bias or manipulation. The tests were conducted on two stretches of highway- Highway 17 (concrete surface), 1.5 miles north of the intersection with Highway 43. Highway 43 (asphalt surface) 1 mile west of the intersection with Highway 17. Visibility has been rated as per the judgment of myself and 4 other drivers associated with Proactive Consultants Inc. Day visibility is judged from a distance of 500 yards (500 being a perfect 10). The points drop by two for every 100 yards less of visibility. These tests were conducted on 25th June, 2010. Night visibility is judged using high beam from a distance of 200 yards (visibility from 200 yards being a perfect 10). The points drop by two for every 40 yards less of visibility. These tests were conducted on 25th September, 2010. Based on our tests, the two best paints for highway marking are WC (which is Hi-Linear Products white paint- HILITE) and YR (which is Centrex Inc.’s new TL yellow paint) The two paint are almost equal in terms of quality. Centrex’s TL yellow paint takes 3 minutes less to dry, has slightly better visibility on concrete, after both 3 months and 6 months. The HILITE paint takes 3 minutes more than Centrex’s paint to dry has slightly better visibility on asphalt after both 3 months and 6 months. In my professional opinion, Centrex’s new TL yellow paint is the most suitable on for highway marker painting for the following reasons: 1) It is the strongest paint overall, better suited for highway marker painting than any other white or yellow highway paint, 2) Centrex is a company with which the Highway Department has been working and is thus a trustworthy source.