Evaluating Sustainability of Face Bricks for Road and Airfield Pavements

Abstract

The feasibility of using face bricks as an alternative to concrete or asphalt paving was evaluated for lightweight and heavyweight vehicle traffic. Paving materials and equipment can be scarce in expeditionary environments, so the use of bricks recycled from existing infrastructure may provide a local resource for constructing pavements suitable for meeting the military's mission requirements. The field testing documented in this paper follows a laboratory study in which a series of strength and characterization tests were conducted on selected face bricks and brick pavers. The success of the laboratory testing led to the full-scale field evaluation of the face and paver bricks trafficked with a commercial dump truck load of approximately 24.5 t and then trafficked with a 20.4 t single-wheel C-17 aircraft load cart. The field testing indicated brick-paved roads constructed with a moderately high-strength base are capable of sustaining more than 10 000 passes of truck traffic without failure. The same brick-paved roads were not capable of withstanding C-17 aircraft traffic. Further results from the evaluation are presented and include material characterization test data, rut depth measurements, wheel path and cross-section profile measurements, instrumentation response data, and forensic assessments.