Assessment of Concrete Pavement Blowups

Abstract

Blowups of concrete pavements have been a thorn in the sides of highway and airport engineers for years. The author of this paper conducts an assessment based on the analyses of pavement blowups. He briefly reviews the various early attempts to explain the blowup phenomenon, then describes the blowup mechanism. Next, he presents the adopted criterion of the safe temperature increase and outlines the analytical methodology used in the assessment. The author provides analytical solutions for three typical pavement problems and the steps for their numerical evaluation. Pavement parameters and a graphical presentation of the results are given. The author also discusses the practical implications of the analytical results for concrete pavement design and for assessing pavement blowups after years of service. Several specific pavement problems are identified and suggestions of full-scale tests for the determination of the pavement parameters are made.