Abstract:

The current practice in design and construction of concrete pavement in India involves placement of pavement quality concrete (PQC) over dry lean concrete (DLC) with a debonding layer of the 125-micron plastic sheet in between DLC and PQC to eliminate possible reflection cracks from DLC to PQC. Concrete pavements can also be constructed when PQC is laid over another layer of concrete (LC) made of recycled / marginal aggregates by two pavers when both the layers are laid one after the other when still wet. PQC gets bonded to the lower concrete layers. This type of pavement is also known as two lift concrete pavement. Joints have to be provided with deep saw cut in the bonded pavement to avoid random cracking. The lean concrete can be made up of recycled concrete or aggregates which may polish under traffic. This will result in the thinner concrete pavement on the top resulting in lower construction cost. IRC 58: 2015 gives an approximate method for design of bonded concrete pavements using equivalent flexural stiffness method. But the main drawback is that stresses in the bottom of PQC and DLC as well as at the interface cannot be computed accurately under the load and temperature gradient acting at the same time.  This paper presents a method of analysis of stresses in two-layer bonded concrete pavements since ready-made solutions are not available for pavement design. Bonded concrete pavements can offer a low-cost solution for an equally strong conventional concrete pavement.

Contributors: Swarna, S. T., Reddy, M. A., & Pandey, B. B.

Link(s) for the Article: Journal Website | ResearchGate