Optimum Pavement Thickness for Rigid Pavement in UP Eastern Region

Abstract

Highways are important in the growth of the economy of the nation. Pavement distributes and reduces the loads to the subgrade so as not to destruct the pavement foundation and subgrade. Thermal stresses are more vulnerable and to be included as the ability to contract and expand concrete is very less. The roads provide vehicle access to various points in all weather conditions and provide road users with a clean, smooth, and comfortable ride without unnecessary delay or excessive wear and tear. Since the UP eastern region faces tremendous temperature differences, load variations, and moisture conditions. This paper puts an attempt to identify the optimum thickness of the rigid pavement to sustain these extreme temperature variations, high humidity, and various load configurations. In this paper the various configurations of the loads are taken from the IRC 6: 2016 along with the various moisture and temperature data are taken from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) ministry of Earth and Science government of India. The paper gives a brief idea of pavement thickness selection. This paper utilizes Finite Element Method (FEM) based Software’s KENPAVE along with ANSYS 12.1 for a better understanding of the critical stress and its positions where the pavement needs attention in the design. All these varying conditions are incorporated in these software’s and the results obtained were in the form of figures, graphs, and deflected shapes. Parametric variation in the pavement section (i.e. variation in thickness of PQC, DLC layer, and in Modulus of Elasticity), variation in poisons ratio and temperature by using these results and doing cost analysis the optimum pavement thickness was obtained.