The Evolution of Roadway

Concrete Pavements
Robert Rodden, P.E.
Define our Scope

Concrete pavements
Not talking RCC
Not talking pervious
New construction
Streets, roads, highways
Our Journey

Chronological (if possible)

Winding (trial + error)
Branching (JPCP to CRCP)
Concise (focus
on KEY
design
variables)
Quick (a lot to
cover)
We’ve Come A Long Way… Quickly…
The Evolution of Concrete Pavement Design

It All Started in 1889

The First Concrete Pavement in the US

Bellefontaine, Ohio, 1891

Two course construction
Hard aggregate on top so
horseshoes and steel
rimmed wagon wheels
wouldn’t wear pavement
Brick-like texture to provide
improved traction
$5k bond for 5 yr warranty
Birth of Concrete Pavements
and, to some degree, JPCP (1891)
Cement Bound Macadam Tried Prior
Design Challenge | Solution

Horseshoes/Steel Wheels & Mud | Concrete

Still Performing After 120+ Years
1900s to 1910s

First conc. overlay on asphalt in 1901!

1913 - First conc. highway – Pine Bluff,
AR
5 in. thick, 9 ft wide
24 miles long
Up to 45 mph!!!
1913 – First conc. overlay on conc.
1914 – 2,348 miles of PCCP
1916 – Woodrow Wilson signs first
Federal-Aid Highway Act – 10k cars
Early Concrete Pavement Details

The first concrete

pavements/slabs were:
≈ 6” thick… no real
structural design because
focus was rut prevention
6’ to 8’ squares based on
mixer capacity… yes, joint
spacing was dictated by
mixer capacity!
No crack control joints or
dowels/steel
Design Challenge | Solution

Speed of Vehicles Increases so People Notice Joint

Roughness & Want to Maximize Production to Minimize
Cost | Minimize Construction Joints
less

and more
Advances Brought New Challenges

More efficient equipment

and placement methods
were soon developed
Slabs got longer
The public wanted 2-lane
roadways for safety
Slabs got wider

… both of these lead First mile of PCCP

to new challenges (1909)
Concrete Tends to Shrink!
Hydration Uses Water Hot then Cold
HOT AT SET
∆𝐿𝐿 = 𝛼𝛼 ∗ ∆𝑇𝑇 ∗ 𝐿𝐿

COOLED OFF

Thermal Shrinkage

Drying Shrinkage

Chemical
Shrinkage
Shrinkage + Restraint = CRACKS!?!

HOT AT SET, HIGH MOISTURE, UNHYDRATED CEMENT

If no restraint

COOL, DRY, HYDRATED CEMENT

TEFLON | No Friction/Restraint

With restraint

Subgrade/Subbase | Restraint
Design Challenge | Solution

Shrinkage Cracking | Thicken CL; Let It Crack Transversely

40-80 ft 15-20 ft
Design Challenge | Solution

Crack Opening | Reinforce to Hold Crack Tightly

Plan

Steel: 0.06-0.25%
Joints: 40-100 ft
Cracks: 15-20 ft

Profile

THE BIRTH OF JRCP

(1913 or Earlier)
Design Challenge | Solution

Crack Maintenance | Create Straight Transverse Joints

Plan

14-20 ft.

Profile
Contraction Joints

How smooth are hand-formed

joints for vehicular traffic?
Design Challenge | Solution

Longitudinal Crack | Create Joint if Wider than 12 – 14 ft

Until 1922, most concrete had been built with no joints

and with a thickened center section to prevent the
formation of an erratic long crack that developed in most
of the 16 to 18 ft wide pavements being built at the time.
Design Challenge | Solution

Construction Joint Faulting/Chipping | Dowel Joints

JPCP Profile

THE BIRTH OF DOWELED JPCP

(1917)

JRCP Profile
 Upon Construction

In the Winter Slabs Contract

Incompressible Enter Joints

Upon Re-Expansion, Blowup

Shorten Joint Spacing

Upon Contraction, No Room for Fines

JPCP w/
JPCP w/

JRCP w/
JRCP w/

15-25ft joints
<40 ft joints
40-80ft joints
80-100 ft joints
Long Panels = Higher Risk of Blowups

Low
Risk
High
Blowup
Design Challenge | Solution

Blowup | Include Expansion Joint if JRCP or long JPCP

Started to “Design” in 1920s

1921-1922 – Pittsburg Road Test in CA (focus on JRCP)

1922-1923 – Bates Road Test in IL
1926 – Westergaard Stress/Deflection Solutions (k-value)
The 1920s Thickened edge b/c stress
Design Challenge | Solution

Crack Faulting | Reinforce MORE to Hold Crack Tightly

Plan
Steel: 0.6-0.85%
Cracks: 2-6 ft.

Profile

THE BIRTH OF CRCP

(1923)
The 1930s Most PCCP was JRCP

Bureau of Public
Roads tests in
Arlington, VA

PCA Thickness
Design based on
Westergaard
Solutions
WWII + TRAFFIC = Faulting of Undoweled
Design Challenge | Solution

Pumping/Faulting | Add a Subbase

The Jointing Dilemma Continued…

During WWII (1939-1945), Bureau of Public Roads

encouraged steel-free designs to free up steel for the war
effort. So the norm became undoweled JPCP with expansion
joints at 105-120 ft, which had contraction joints open and
poor performance. These pavements were relatively free of
cracking, spalling and blowups, but the faulting was serious.
After WWII, typically either undoweled JPCP with short joints
and no expansion joints or long jointed JRCP with
contraction/expansion joints at 50 to 100 ft.
…and Continued

In the 1940s the US Bureau of Public Roads did a study

on expansion joints
Showed that they progressively close over the years, causing
greater openings at nearby contraction joints and resulting in
loss of aggregate interlock and sealant failure.
Showed that expansion joints are not necessary unless
contraction joints spaced at greater than 60 ft, aggregates are
expansive, or temp during construction is near freezing.
Traffic/Speed Increased Our Challenge!!!
1940s Stopped requiring thickened edge
and lanes got wider

1940-1975
Design Challenge | Solution

Still Fighting Faulting | Soil Cement Subgrade; First CTB

Salt Scaling | Entrained Air Introduced
Overlay to Widen and Upgrade
Design Challenge | Solution

Efficiency in Placement | Slipform Paving

First Slipform Paver

(1949)
Design Challenge | Solution

Joint Smoothness and Constructability | Saw Joints

Slipform + joint sawing
made JPCP the most
economical and
simplest to build
Things are Starting to Look Familiar
Eisenhower Interstate Highway System

1956
AASHO Road Test 1958-1960
Innovation in Construction Marched On
Notables in the 60s, 70s, 80s

In the 1960s, many joints where skewed to avoid dowels

1964 – first concrete shoulder
1976 – importance of maintenance realized and
congress approves federal funding for the 3R program:
restoration, rehabilitation, and resurfacing
1980s – slab joints in new highway pavements pretty
much always doweled
…Once the AASHO road test was completed, we
didn’t focus too much on thickness design for many,
many decades
We Even Tried a “Hinge Joint” Design

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/concrete/hpcp/hpcp05.cfm
90s, 00s, 10s

Focus much more on production (e.g., stringless paving,

fast-set mixtures, variable width pavers, DBI), mixtures
(e.g., optimized gradation), thickness design (e.g.,
widened slabs, climate), load transfer (e.g., dowel
geometry, material, etc.), quality (e.g., curing processes),
etc. so really refining what we’re doing and not doing
anything too drastically different.
New design methods:
2005, 2012 – ACPA StreetPave
2010 – AASHTO MEPDG / DARWin-ME / Pavement ME
The Three BIG Kahunas

Design Challenge JPCP JRCP CRCP

Transverse Joint Spacing 14-20 ft 22-100+ ft N/A
Transverse Crack Spacing N/A 15-20 ft 2-6 ft
Rut-Resistant Surface Yes Yes Yes
Shrinkage Accounted for by Jointing Cracking Cracking
Reinforcing N/A 0.06 – 0.25% 0.6-0.85%
Expansion Joints Used No Sometimes Maybe
Tiebars Used in Long Joints Yes Yes Yes
Longitudinal Joint Spacing 12-14 ft 12-14 ft 12-14 ft
Trying to Minimize the Number YES YES YES
of Man-Made Joints – WHY?
AASHTO 62-93 Design Yes Yes Yes
AASHTO ME Design Yes NO Yes
StreetPave Design Yes NO NO
 Most PCCP in the US is JPCP
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
JPCP
Arizona
Arkansas JRCP Joints are not the
Delaware CRCP problem; cracks are!
Florida
Hawaii
Idaho
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Michigan
Missouri
Montana
Nevada
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Utah
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin Source: Brett Trautman, MoDOT, “Striving for Long-Life
Wyoming Concrete Pavements – Missouri’s Direction”
The Horizon in Far into Future

Some states are considering 50-

100 yr JPCP and CRCP designs
Focus now on materials because we
know we can engineer COST-
EFFECTIVE and easy to maintain
50-100yr JPCP & CRCP designs
The FHWA International
Conference on Long-Life
Concrete Pavements included
only 1 discussion on JRCP performance.
What’s the Market Like Now?
km of Paved Roadway by Country

5,000,000
4,500,000
4,000,000
3,500,000
3,000,000
2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000
-

kilometers Source: CIA’s World Factbook

km of Paved Roadway per km2 AREA

3.00 2.84

2.50

2.00 1.81
1.62
1.50 1.41 1.35

1.00
0.45 0.49
0.50
0.16
0.05 0.04
-

kilometers Source: CIA’s World Factbook

m of Paved Roadway per PERSON

16.0 15.0 14.8

14.0
14.0
11.9
12.0
10.0
7.5 7.9 8.0
8.0
6.0 5.4
4.0
2.0 1.3 1.2
-

meters Source: CIA’s World Factbook

GDP per m of Paved Roadway

$6,000 $5,694
$5,092
$5,000
$4,240
$4,000 $3,765 $3,868
$3,379
$3,000 $2,626
$1,924 $2,064
$2,000
$1,064
$1,000

$-

meter Source: CIA’s World Factbook and Wikipedia

U.S. Concrete Paving Market Volume

70
Square Yards of Paving

60
50
(Millions)

40
30
20
10
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Source: Calculated from Square Yard paving items. Data from states reported in ACPA’s Publication “Pavement Market Quarterly” and
data received from ACPA chapters/state paving associations.
Concrete Resurfacing Share of
National Concrete Volume
20
Percentage of Overlays of

Half are 6 in. or less!

Total Concrete SY

15

10

0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
LCCA is a BIG Topic of Interest
Weighted Average Unit Prices vs.
Share of Spending
Source: OMAN, Bid Tabs Software – Public Data.
Federal Guidance Includes….

AASHO 1960’s Pavement Type

Selection:
The Potential for Concrete as Resurfacing

ACPA estimates that by Total SY of Concrete

2020: 120

True competition could 100

exist in resurfacing 80
technology
60
66 million square yards of
concrete overlays placed 40
annually
20
Impacts no more than
10% of asphalt resurfacing 0
volume. Current w/Competition
 Thank you.
Questions? FEEDBACK!