PORTLAND CEMENT CONCRETE PAVEMENT: REHABILITATION CHALLENGES AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The Federal Highway Administration sponsored a 3-day workshop in March 1990 to examine the state of the practice of concrete pavement evaluation and rehabilitation strategy selection. The key workshop findings and recommendations are summarized in this article. It is noted that rehabilitation strategies should be selected systematically, and the timing of rehabilitation is linked to strategy selection. The prediction of rehabilitation performance requires extensive data, and custom design is vital to successful pavement rehabilitation. Each rehabilitation technique raises different considerations, and many technical issues affect successful rehabilitation, such as drainage, preoverlay repair, reflection cracking and structural capacity of break/cracked and seated and rubbilized portland cement concrete. Management and logistic considerations such as fragmented lines of responsibility and communication, inadequate funding, lack of performance standards and user considerations also hamper successful rehabilitation. It is noted that with increasing truck loadings, deficit of trained engineers, rehabilitation problems will increase in the future.