A FRAMEWORK FOR REPAIR AND REHABILITATION TREATMENT SELECTION FOR PORTLAND CEMENT CONCRETE PAVEMENTS

Abstract

In order to ensure that pavement investment decisions are made in an optimum manner, the State highway agencies (SHAs) are continually examining their pavement maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction (MRR) strategies and their repair and rehabilitation (R&R) techniques to maintain and preserve the nation’s highways. As the economy has grown in recent years, highways in the United States are being subjected to more and more vehicles with heavy loads. This effect along with the variety of climatic conditions has caused the vast network of the nation’s highways to deteriorate in a number of different ways. Consequently, current decisions associated with the repair of this deterioration have long reaching implications for many future generations. With respect to portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements, the state of practice of MRR is good, but it can be better. In the last 10 to 15 years, significant improvements have been made in our understanding of PCC pavement failure mechanisms, pavement condition evaluation techniques, repair materials, equipment, and techniques for MRR. The challenge is how to use this information to preserve the highway investment that has been made over the years while maintaining pavement structures in a serviceable condition. These and other factors have caused SHAs greater concern regarding the effectiveness of their maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction (MRR) strategies and their repair and rehabilitation (R&R) treatments in maintaining and preserving the nation’s highways. Consequently, techniques are sought after in repair treatment selection that will enhance the effectiveness of strategies for maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction of concrete pavements and to develop better decision-making processes to select MRR strategies and R&R treatments. These types of devices will help highway agencies and engineers select treatments that will ensure expected performance.