Abstract:
Indian Road Congress (IRC) design guideline for concrete pavement suggests pavement quality concrete (PQC) layer over a roller compacted concrete designated as dry lean concrete (DLC) with a bond breaking layer of 0.125 mm thick plastic sheet at the interface of DLC and PQC. IRC 58 also includes the design of bonded concrete pavement in which the top high strength concrete slab is bonded to the lean concrete (LC) base but for unbonded pavements, it is assumed that the edges of the DLC/LC base and the concrete slab are in the same vertical plane for the analysis of stresses. In Portland cement Association (PCA) design method also similar assumption is considered. In actual construction the base extends beyond the concrete slab for the convenience of the construction and stresses will be different for such conditions. The solutions for stresses in concrete pavements with extended bases are not available, both in bonded and unbonded concrete pavements. In this paper, the stresses in a concrete pavement with and without extended DLC/LC base are computed by Finite Element Method (FEM) considering both axle loads and temperature gradients across the depth of the concrete slab and Dry lean concrete (DLC). Analysis of stresses in both unbonded and bonded concrete pavements indicates that the maximum flexural stresses in concrete pavements are reduced when extended DLC/LC base is provided. This will result in a lower thickness of pavement layers.
Contributors: Swarna, S. T., Reddy, M. A., & Pandey, B. B.
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