Maintenance and Evaluation of Pavement for Highways

In-service pavement requires maintenance, it may be routine in nature, or may be major reconstruction. A pavement is designed for an assumed period, after the expiry of the design period, the pavement is likely to fail structurally and therefore, it would require a major renewal to extend it life further. Even within the service life of a pavement, the top wearing course is likely to be subjected to considerable distress due to the movement of vehicles on it. Thus the wearing course needs some routine Maintenance for smooth movements of vehicles over the pavement. The present paper introduces the reader to the Maintenance issues of a pavement. The paper is divided into sections apart from the introduction of which the first section discusses the various forms of distresses of pavement, their possible origin, and their quantification in terms of distress indices, the next two sections deal with the functional and structural evaluation of pavement their techniques , related equipment, and analysis procedures. Remedial measures to extend the longevity of pavement are discussed in the other sections while last section briefly mentions the need for evolving maintenance strategies subjected to possible fund constrains.