Service Life Of Concrete Pavement Research Articles

The Effects of Hybrid Steel/Basalt Fibers on the Durability of Concrete Pavement against Freeze-Thaw Cycles.

Freeze-thaw (F-T) is one of the principal perils afflicting concrete pavements. A remedial strategy used during construction encompasses the integration of hybrid fibers into the concrete matrix. An extant research gap persists in elucidating the damage mechanism inherent in hybrid steel fiber (SF)- and basalt fiber (BF)-reinforced concrete subjected to F-T conditions. This paper empirically investigated the durability performance of hybrid fiber-reinforced concrete (HFRC) subjected to F-T cycles. The impact of SF/BF hybridization on mass loss, abrasion resistance, compressive strength, flexural strength, damaged layer thickness, and the relative dynamic modulus of elasticity (RDME) was examined. The damage mechanism was explored using micro-hardness and SEM analysis. The results indicate that incorporating hybrid SF/BF effectively enhances the F-T resistance of concrete and prolongs the service life of concrete pavement. The mechanisms underlying these trends can be traced back to robust bonding at the fiber/matrix interface. Randomly dispersed SFs and BFs contribute to forming a three-dimensional spatial structure within the concrete matrix, suppressing the expansion of internal cracks caused by accumulated hydrostatic pressure during the F-T cycle. This research outcome establishes a theoretical foundation for the application of HFRC to concrete pavements in cold regions.

Experimental Investigation on Physical Properties of Concrete Containing Polypropylene Fiber and Water-Borne Epoxy for Pavement

Cement concrete pavement accounts for a large proportion of the road network due to its excellent mechanical strength and durability. However, numerous microcracks are generated due to the high brittleness of concrete, which poses a threat to the service life of concrete pavement. Currently, simultaneous addition of fibers and polymers is a feasible approach to resolving the issues associated with the brittleness of concrete. This study explores the properties of concrete mixtures containing different levels of polypropylene fibers and water-borne epoxy. Additionally, fly ash is also introduced to concrete mixtures. The tests performed include slump, compressive strength, flexural strength, shrinkage, depth of water penetration, and abrasion. The results indicate that water-borne epoxy, at all levels, contributed to improving the weak interfacial bonding between polypropylene fibers and concrete. In addition, the combined incorporation of polypropylene fibers and water-borne epoxy could improve the mechanical and durability properties of concrete, with the combined utilization of 0.1% polypropylene fibers and 10% water-borne epoxy exhibiting the best performance. Moreover, with the incorporation of 10% fly ash into concrete, the mechanical strength and abrasion resistance experienced a slight reduction, while the workability, drying shrinkage resistance, and impermeability were improved. The current findings indicate that the combined utilization of polypropylene fibers and water-borne epoxy at appropriate levels is beneficial for application in pavement; however, in spite of superior drying shrinkage resistance and impermeability, the incorporation of fly ash into concrete pavement should be properly treated according to the actual engineering conditions.

Fuzzy Inference System for Predicting Functional Service Life of Concrete Pavements in Airports

Concerning one of the most important tasks of road structure management is the development of methods to predict their own functional or physical service life, which allows for objectively evaluating the state of road structures that are being considered or are already in operation with minimal labor and monetary incomes. Fuzzy logic systems constitute one successful methodology used for the valuation of pavement degradation. The clustering that focuses on pavement degradation conditions is normally performed by a visual inspection or using data collected by automated distress measurement equipment. Fuzzy sets theory provides different advantages for including a certain degree of uncertainty in the pavement performance index, subjective analysis, and maintenance assessments and can greatly improve consistency and reduce subjectivity in the degradation process. The main objective of this study was to develop a new fuzzy logic-based model to predict the functional service life of concrete pavement conditions and maintenance action evaluations concerning the airport network of Viña del Mar, Central Chile, and using pavement distress data from the Directorate of Airports, Ministry of Public Works of Chile. The proposed fuzzy logic model can be remarkably beneficial for design, construction, and maintenance, to evaluate design decisions for the measurable and objective valuation of deviations in the quality of construction, and for timely forecasting work based on continuous observing of the current infrastructure system.

Life-Cycle Cost Analysis on Application of Asphalt and Concrete Pavement Overlay

Concrete pavement proportions are increasing in Korean expressways, resulting in increased maintenance cost. The length of degenerate concrete pavements that have exceeded the design life (20 years) was 1150 km in 2015 and 2605 km in 2020 and is expected to rapidly increase. To extend the service life of concrete pavements, life-cycle cost (LCC) analysis was conducted on asphalt and concrete overlays, based on the different maintenance methods. LCC analysis was performed when the shoulder was used and when it was not used between 6000 and 35,000 AADT traffic according to the two-lane and four-lane traffic. During overlay, one lane was completely blocked, and the value per vehicle was converted into the user cost using the Construction Analysis for Pavement Rehabilitation Strategies software, according to whether the shoulder was used to maintain the number of lanes. In addition, LCC analysis was conducted by examining the construction cost and life-cycle according to each overlay method. When the shoulder was used, the total construction cost decreased, owing to the reduction in user cost, indicating that the implementation of the traffic measure of using the road shoulder improves user satisfaction and cost. The asphalt overlay was observed to be more favorable than concrete overlay in terms of the initial total construction cost. However, under a 20-year cycle, the economic efficiency of concrete overlay was higher than that of asphalt overlay. After repairing the deteriorated target sections of concrete pavements, the overlay method (asphalt or concrete) ought to be selected according to the target service life for beneficial economic effect. Concrete overlay was to obtain about 20% or greater LCC effect compared to asphalt overlay, and at least 5% or more additional LCC effect obtained when the shoulder was used.

Full-Scale Laboratory Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Subgrade Soil Stabilization Practices for Portland Cement Concrete Pavements Patching Applications

Adequate quality of subgrade under patched areas can extend the service life of concrete pavements and reduce their maintenance costs. In this study, the performance of various subgrade stabilization scenarios was evaluated and compared with each other in a full-scale laboratory-based setup. For this purpose, a test box with the footprint of 6 × 6 ft and a height of 4 ft was constructed using C steel channels. The test box was used to investigate the effects of various types of soil stabilization methods, such as chemical (cement) stabilization, use of aggregate base course (ABC), geogrid (GG) and geotextile (GT) with ABC, GT with cement-stabilized soil, GT with in-situ compacted soil, flowable fill, and lean concrete. The test results showed that all stabilization techniques successfully improved the performance of the subgrade layer by decreasing the deformation under the fatigue loading representing a single axle load of 9,000 lbf/tire. The use of GT with aggregate-based layers was found to significantly reduce the amount of settlement. Subgrade layers stabilized with GG also experienced lower values of deformations compared with the unmodified (control) section. However, GG was not as effective as GT. The use of cement-treated aggregate and lean concrete reduced the deformations to negligible levels.

Fatigue performance of PVA fibre reinforced cementitious composite overlays

ABSTRACT Pavement maintenance and rehabilitation is as much important as the construction work itself. In this scope, applying the correct and efficient repair method is highly critical for economic and technical reasons. Depending on the damage level, many alternative repair methods exist. Using an overlay is one common method, where a new layer can be directly applied over or replace the top part of an existing pavement. This overlay can be made from asphalt or concrete as well. With the advances in the concrete technology, the long service life of concrete pavements compared to asphalt let this overlay gains importance recently. Yet, the rigid nature of concrete requires a high thickness for an overlay. In this work, Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) type of concrete was suggested to be used as an overlay considering its ability, with a less thickness, to reduce the reflection of the cracks from the old pavement. To testify this property, the performance of two ECC mixtures as a concrete pavement overlay was investigated under fatigue loading. Using Weibull distribution, the failure probability of these mixtures was determined, and it was shown that the mineral admixture type utilized significantly affects the fatigue performance of ECC.

Longitudinal cracking of jointed plain concrete pavements in Louisiana: Field investigation and numerical simulation

The current mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide does not directly consider longitudinal cracking in concrete pavement design. However, longitudinal cracking has been widely observed on joint plain concrete pavements, sometimes even more significant than transverse cracking, which adversely affect the performance and service life of concrete pavements. The objective of this study was to determine the possible causes for the longitudinal cracking problem in joint plain concrete pavements so that effective actions can be taken in future design and construction. Both field project survey of severe longitudinal cracking and numerical simulations were conducted. Results confirmed that construction problems such as inadequate longitudinal joint forming and inadequate base support are among the contribution factors, in particular for premature and localized longitudinal cracks. However, field survey indicated that the amounts of longitudinal cracking increased with widened slabs and tied concrete shoulders. Results from numerical simulation further demonstrated that the geometry of a slab could greatly influence the potential of longitudinal cracking, especially when the traffic is composed of more tandem and tridem axles. The field data led to a development of an empirical model for the prediction of longitudinal cracking. As the geometry including slab length, width and thickness is generally a design issue, this study warrants the necessity and possibility of developing a mechanistic-empirical model for longitudinal cracking in future mechanistic-empirical pavement design.

Potential applications of phase change materials to mitigate freeze-thaw deteriorations in concrete pavement

A study was performed to evaluate the feasibility of using phase change materials (PCMs) to mitigate freeze-thaw deteriorations in concrete pavements. The approach taken in this paper was to reduce the expected number of freeze-thaw cycles by harnessing the latent heat of fusion of a paraffin-based organic PCM with a phase transition temperature of 4.5 °C (N-Tetradecane). To ensure stable and proper functioning of PCM in mortar, the PCM was coated with tiny melamine-formaldehyde resin shells using a microencapsulation technique. A preliminary study verified successful thermal storage/release functions of the PCM microencapsulated with a melamine-formaldehyde resin. Thermal response tests showed that the low-transition temperature PCM has a promising potential to extend the service life of concrete pavements against freeze-thaw deteriorations even though its effect became minimal with prolonged exposure to ambient temperature far below the transition temperature. A microencapsulated PCM (mPCM) inclusion was found to negatively affect the compressive and flexural strengths or mortar, whereas the volume stability at early ages was rather enhanced in the presence of mPCM.

Experimental Comparison of Methods to Assess the Durability of Concrete Pavement Deteriorated from Scaling and Freeze–Thaw Effect

In cold climates, deicing agents are used to reduce traffic problems due to ice and snowdrifts. However, the use of deicing salts results in accelerated scaling of concrete surfaces on account of damage caused by salt combined with rapid freeze–thaw cycles. These cycles reduce user safety and the service life of concrete pavement. Moreover, scaling is the deterioration of concrete due to the general loss of surface mortar or the mortar surrounding aggregates in concrete. Numerous methods have been proposed and evaluations have been conducted to predict the degree of deterioration caused by scaling and freeze–thaw cycles. In the present study, several previously proposed test methods were experimentally investigated and their differences were examined. Although the watertightness and durability properties of fly ash concrete were observed to be excellent, the scaling resistance decreased. Therefore, it is considered that scaling resistance has a direct effect on cement paste strength. Furthermore, measurement of the scaling resistance varies according to the saline solution, surface finishing treatment, and freeze–thaw environments. In this study, saline solutions that combined the deicing agents NaCl and CaCl2 were used. The surfaces of the test specimens were given the same finish as the field samples using a stiff brush after bleeding. It was determined that these conditions must be considered to simulate conditions that are similar to those of roads, and a critical experimental assessment must be undertaken.

Temperature Reduction of Concrete Pavement Using Glass Bead Materials

In this study, different proportions of glass beads used for road marking were added into the concrete samples to reduce the temperature gradient through the concrete pavement thickness. It is well known that decreasing the temperature gradient reduces the risk of thermal cracking and increases the service life of concrete pavement. The extent of alkali–silica reaction (ASR) produced with partial replacement of fine aggregate by glass bead was investigated and compressive strength of concrete samples with different proportion of glass bead in their mix designs were measured in this study. Ideal results were obtained with less than 0.850 mm diameter size glass beads were used (19 % by total weight of aggregate) for C30/37 class concrete. Top and bottom surface temperatures of two different C30/37 strength class concrete slabs with and without glass beads were measured. It was identified that, using glass bead in concrete mix design, reduces the temperature differences between top and bottom surfaces of concrete pavement. The study presented herein provides important results on the necessity of regulating concrete road mix design specifications according to regions and climates to reduce the temperature gradient values which are very important in concrete road design.

Effect of Internal Water Pressure on the Measured Coefficient of Thermal Expansion of Concrete

A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) test procedures and length-change measuring devices on the measured CTE values. Twenty different coarse aggregate sources were tested using the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) suggested CTE methods. Two different types of length-change measuring devices, linear variable differential transformers (LVDTs) and differential variable reluctance transducers (DVRTs), were used. No significant effects of length-change measuring devices were observed on the CTE values measured by the TxDOT method. However, the test methods have shown effects on the measured values. The TxDOT method yields higher CTE values than the AASHTO method. Data obtained in this study confirmed that the internal water pressure development during the heating and cooling cycles is one of the potential reasons. Internal water pressure can significantly affect the CTE of concrete. Further investigation is needed to determine the effect of internal water pressure on the CTE, which affects the design and service life of concrete pavements.

EVALUATION OF SERVICE LIFE OF CONCRETE PAVEMENT BY MONTE CARLO SIMULATION

Service life of concrete pavement is influenced by uncertainty factors inherent in pavement conditions. This study describes a method of Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the service life of concrete pavement taken into account these uncertainty factors. Results of the simulation illustrated in this study showed that the probability density function of service life can be expressed by a Beta distribution and the reliability of concrete pavement can be evaluated by this simulation method.