Rehabilitation of Jointed Portland Cement Concrete Pavements: SPS-6, Initial Evaluation and Analysis

Publication No. FHWA-RD-01-169
October 2005

PDF Version (1.47 MB)

FOREWORD

The Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program Specific Pavement Studies 6 (SPS-6) experiment, "Rehabilitation of Jointed Portland Cement Concrete Pavements," is one of the key experiments of the LTPP program. The main objective of this experiment is to determine the effects of specific rehabilitation design features that directly influence the long-term effectiveness of rehabilitated jointed plain concrete pavements (JPCP) and jointed reinforced concrete pavements (JRCP). This report documents the first comprehensive review and evaluation of the SPS-6 experiment. The evaluation concludes that many important and useful findings and results can be obtained from the SPS-6 experiment despite several limitations resulting from not constructing a few of the test sites and the few construction deviations that occurred. In addition, some materials and traffic data are missing from some sites or sections, which are important to achieving the objectives of the experiment. These data are now being sought from the SPS-6 sites.

Some interesting and important early trends have already been identified that will be useful to the rehabilitation of JPCP, even though the sections were only a maximum of 10 years old at the time of this study. As time and traffic loadings accumulate on the SPS-6 sites, much more valuable performance data will be obtained. For example, the direct comparison of the performance of the designs with and without fractured concrete is of intense interest to State highway agencies. Future analyses of the performance data from the SPS-6 experiment will lead to significant new and important findings on the value of: minimum and maximum preparation with and without an asphalt concrete (AC) overlay; sawing and sealing of AC joints; fracturing of the concrete pavement prior to an AC overlay; existing concrete pavement conditions prior to rehabilitation; traffic level; and climate. These findings will lead to more reliable and cost-effective rehabilitation designs for JPCP.

This report will be of interest to highway agency engineers involved in the design, construction, and management of the pavements, and also to future researchers who will analyze the performance of the SPS-6 sections.

Steve Chase, Ph.D.
Acting Director, Office of Infrastructure
Research and Development

NOTICE

This document is disseminated under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Transportation in the interest of information exchange. The U.S. Government assumes no liability for the use of the information contained in this document. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation.

The U.S. Government does not endorse products or manufacturers. Trademarks or manufacturers' names appear in this report only because they are considered essential to the objective of the document.

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