Talk:Tarmacadam

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British Colloquial Usage

Hey, in the UK Tarmac is colloquially used to refer to a road surface, should this be mentioned at all? Also, I've literally never hear a brit use the word Asphalt. The latter doesn't matter, but I feel like the former is worth mentioning? I'm not sure though. Inkybinky3 (talk) 00:39, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article Verification

Ummmm... I'm not really sure of the accuracy of this article. Tarmac was invented by John Loudon McAdam and that article gives his death as 1836, it also says: The first macadamized road in North America was completed in 1830.. While this article says: Tarmac was invented when E. Purnell Hooley was passing a tarworks in 1901. Which is right? Certainly when I was at school I was taught that John Macadam was the inventor of tarmac although the details escape me these days. --Colin Angus Mackay 23:48, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

McAdam invented the "macadamization" road-building method all right (see Macadam), but he was long gone before the practice of sealing macadam roads with tar (tarmacking) came in, as this article says, at the start of the 20th century. -- Picapica 10:44, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Some photos

I've uploaded the following PD images to commons, for potential use in this article. Currently I don't think the article is long enough to warrant their inclusion, but if you think otherwise then please add them. In the meantime I've posted them here for reference. The sky's gone funny - I can fix this digitally if the photos are going to be used. Let me know via my talk page (or feel free to fix them up yourself if you want...) --HappyDog 07:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Those are fine pictures, but almost certainly of asphalt concrete, not tarmac. Toiyabe 23:03, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have added the first image to Pavement_(material)#Asphalt_paving, where I think it fits in very nicely! Thank you for the picture! However, I have to agree with Toiyabe that it doesn't really apply to the Tarmac article.--Mdwyer 05:09, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is tarmac?

Maybe I'm being stupid, but I've read this article three times now, and I can't find anything that explains what tarmac actually is -- i.e. what its components are, and how it is constructed (if appropriate). The introduction simply says that it's a 'type of highway surface'. While I can infer from the 'Origins' section that it's some kind of mixture of tar and gravel, it would be nice to have this stated explicitly, and perhaps with more detail, in the main introduction. --chrismear 18:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at Asphalt concrete. Its history is slightly different, but nowdays it's essentially the same product and the compostion is described in a bit more detail there. Moonraker88 18:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added more detail. Confusing tarmac and asphalt concrete is a pet peeve of mine, but there's really not much hope for changing things. I've never heard of a tarmac pavement being built in the last 50 years, but it's possible that they still make something simmilar in India or China (areas with steel production but not much petroleum). Toiyabe 19:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unless asphalt melts in hot weather (by hot I mean hot for Ireland, anything from 20C upwards), we still widely use tarmac or some tar-based road surfacing here. Besides, there's a clear difference between the stuff I've seen in the US, the stuff on motorways and major new roads here, and just the normal road surfacing here. And from the stories of local councils in the UK sending out winter gritting machines this summer to grit roads where *tar* was melting, it seems they still use tarmac or somesuch as well.

zoney ♣ talk 23:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what you mean by "melting" - tar and asphalt are both liquids (unless you want to get really pedantic). Tar is more temperature sensitive, meaning its viscosity will be lower than that of asphalt on a hot summer day (~ 40 C) and higher then that of asphalt on a cold winter night (~-20 C). But in both cases they are "molten".

I think you are referring to what we call "bleeding" - excessive binder (either tar or asphalt) working its way to the surface of the pavement. It happens quicker in hot temperatures than cold and for tar binders rather than asphalt, but the root problem is that you've got more liquid then you've got voids in the aggregate (i.e. space between the stones). It will naturally be forced to the surface when loaded. The ammount of time it takes to work its way to the surface is dependent on viscosity (and therefore temperature), traffic loading (especially speed, happens quicker with lower speed traffic) and all sorts of other things.

Bleeding is more common on bituminous surface treatments (BSTs a.k.a. "chip seals", "oil and stone" ... there's lots of regional names) than asphalt concrete because there's less control over the process. Its pretty easy to get too much binder (especially on pavements built up from multiple BST layers over the years), and thus bleeding. I think the difference in appearance you are noticing is a BST vs. Asphalt Concrete.

That's not to say that tar binders aren't used in Ireland. I don't know one way or the other, but if I had to guess I'd say they aren't. I'm just saying that what you are seeing could be explained by BSTs with an asphalt binder. It is very common for laypersons to use the terms tar, asphalt and bitumen interchangeably. Toiyabe 23:51, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bleeding? I'm talking about the roads turning to mush at about 23/24C. The sound as one's car drives through the "melted" patches is akin to the sound of driving through a puddle. The road surface is highly deformed as a result. This is quite common on rural roads in Ireland at least, and seemingly in some places in the UK also. zoney ♣ talk 11:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that seems like bleeding to me, especially the sound like driving through a puddle. Bleeding and rutting (surface distortions along the wheel path) are commonly seen together - both are symptoms of low air voids in the mix. With low air voids there is poor contact between the aggregate particles and the mix as a whole acts more like a fluid. Toiyabe 21:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proprietary name or common name?

Is the name Tarmac (still) a proprietary name, or can anybody use it?

Also, do the companies with the name Tarmac in them (there are loads on Companies' House) all belong to one group?

It is the registered trading name of the Tarmac company Chevin (talk) 11:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to your second question is "no". I won't mention any examples in case someone from Anglo American is reading, but a few of them have web sites. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 22:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Other Uses of the Word

Should a reference be made to Tarmac as another term for an airplane runway? Tarmac, as a common noun, refers to (most typically) smaller, private strips - this is perhaps the most common understanding of the word in the United States.

English Invention?

If Tarmac was invented by a Scotsman, then it isn't an English Invention, so I have removed it from that category.Rubisco (talk) 13:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since it is an English invention I will be putting the category backChevin (talk) 11:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article is in need of a thorough make-over

>> Tarmac (short for tarmacadam, a portmanteau for tar-penetration macadam) is a type of highway surface, pioneered by John Loudon McAdam in around 1820. <<

Oh no, it isn't! McAdam had been dead 65 years before the patenting of tarmac. And though tarmac was indeed a development of macadamization the words "Strictly speaking..." in the next sentence aren't sufficient to make up for the mis-statement in the first sentence of the article. Someone needs to take a good look at re-writing this article from scratch... -- Picapica (talk) 23:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be having a go at it shortly Chevin (talk) 11:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Use of word 'Tarmac' with Runways...

This article seems to indicate that the use of the word tarmac for runways came about in 1976. However Biggles books mention tarmac much earlier than this in reference to runways http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/8456/Biggles.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.67.252 (talk) 15:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's no denying that the text on that page includes the word "tarmac". However, I'm not sure how reliable the source is...would these snippets be regarded as being from the Biggles canon, or are they merely modern pastiches in the style of...?

EdJogg (talk) 18:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More research for a citable source perhaps? I've known tarmac in this context since the Second World WarChevin (talk) 11:39, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here we are. Courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary:

"The registered trade-mark of a kind of tar macadam consisting of iron slag impregnated with tar and creosote; also designating a surface made of tar macadam. Now freq. with lower-case initial. the tarmac (colloq.), the airfield or runway." Chevin (talk) 11:52, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OED again: the first date cited for "aircraft" use is 1919, in a pilots' training manual. --Old Moonraker (talk) 11:59, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OED reference added.--Old Moonraker (talk) 06:58, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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