Rigid Pavement

❑ Rigid Pavement:
Rigid Pavements are normally constructed of Portland cement concrete and
may or may not have a base course between the subgrade and the concrete
surface.

Base Course

Natural Subgrade
Fig: Component of Rigid Pavements

❑ Components of Rigid Pavement:

✓ Subgrade
✓ Base Course / Subbase
✓ Portland Cement Concrete
# Base courses are often called subbase courses when used with rigid pavements
are utilized under these pavements for several reasons:
✓ Control of pumping
✓ Control of frost action
✓ Drainage
✓ Control of shrink and swell of the subgrade
❑ Pavement Types:
▪ No temperature steel or dowels for load transfer
➢ Plain Concrete Pavement ▪ Low volume highway
▪ Joints are placed 10-20 ft
▪ Joints 30-100 ft
➢ Simply reinforced Concrete Pavement ▪ Have dowels & temperature steel
▪ Tie bars at longitudinal joints

▪ No transverse joints
➢ Continuous reinforced Concrete Pavement ▪ High percentage of steel
▪ Tie bars
❑ Materials used in rigid pavements:
❖ Portland cement:
✓ Portland cement is manufactured by crushing and pulverizing a
carefully prepared mix of limestone, marl, and clay or shale and
by burning the mix at a high temperature to form clinker.
✓ Main chemical constituents- tricalcium silicate (C3S),
Dicalcium silicate (C2S), tetra calcium alumino-ferrite (C4AF)

❖ Coarse Aggregate:
✓ The coarse aggregates are inert materials that do not react with
cement and are usually comprised of crushed gravel, stone
✓ One of the major requirements is the gradation of the material
✓ The material is well graded, with the maximum size specified
✓ In los angles abrasion test 40-50% has proved to be generally
acceptable.
❖ Fine Aggregate
✓ Sand is mainly used as the fine aggregate
✓ Specified include grading requirements, soundness, & cleanliness
✓ A maximum of 10% weight loss is usually specified.

❖ water
✓Should be suitable for drinking
✓The quantity of organic matter, oil, acids, and alkalis should not be
greater than the allowable amount in drinking water.

❖ Reinforcing Steel
✓ Steel reinforcing used to reduce the amount of cracking that occurs as a
load transfer mechanism at joints
✓ Temperature Steel: Steel reinforcement used to control cracking
✓ Dowel bars: Used as load transfer mechanism
✓ Tie bars: used to connect two slabs together.
❖ Temperature Steel
✓ It is provided in the form of wire mesh consisting of longitudinal and
transverse steel wires welded at regular intervals.
✓ The mesh is usually placed about 3 in below the slab surface.
✓ Temperature steel controls the crack widths because the steel acts as
a tie holding the edges of the cracks together.

❖ Dowel Bars
✓ Use mainly as load transfer mechanisms across joints
✓ They provide flexural, shearing, and bearing resistance
✓ Diameter of 1-1.5 in and lengths of 2-3 ft have been used.
✓ Spaced at 1 ft centers across the width of the slab
✓ At least one end of the bar should be smooth and lubricated to
facilitate free expansion.
❖ Tie Bars
✓ Used to tie two sections of the pavement together.
✓ Diameter and spacing for these bars are ¾” and 3’ respectively
❑ Joints
Different types of joints are placed in concrete pavements to limit
the stresses induced by temperature changes and to facilitate
proper bonding of two adjacent sections of pavement when there
is a time lapse between their construction.

❑ Types of Joints
Joints can be divided into four basic categories:
✓ Expansion Joints
✓ Contraction Joints
✓ Hinge Joints
✓ Construction Joints
 ❑ Expansion Joints

✓ When concrete pavement is subjected to an increase in

temperature, it will expand resulting in an increase in length of the
slab
✓ Expansion Joints are usually placed transversely at regular intervals
to provide adequate space for the slab to expand.
✓ These joints are placed across the full width of the slab are ¾ to 1
in wide in the longitudinal direction.
✓ The joints space is filled with a compressible filler material that
permits the slab to expand.
✓ Filler materials can be cork, rubber, or bituminous materials.
✓ The load-transfer mechanism is usually a smooth dowel bar that
will develop an interlocking mechanism.
✓ An expansion cap is also usually installed to provide a space for the
dowel to occupy during expansion.
 25 mm Top of Pavement

60 mm

38 mm ϕ @ 225 mm c/c
Expansion Cap

375 mm
12 mm ϕ @ 225mm c/c

Plain Dowel Bar

60 mm 75 mm 75 mm

900 mm

Expansion Joint
 ❑ Contraction Joint
✓ When concrete pavement is subjected to a decrease in temperature
the slab will contract if it is free to move. Prevention of this
contraction movement will induce tensile stresses in the concrete
pavement.
✓ Contraction joints are used for two purposes: to control cracking of
the slab resulting from contraction and to relieve temperature
warping stresses.
✓ Contraction joints are placed transversely at regular intervals across
the width of the pavement to release some of the tensile stresses
that are so induced.
✓ The spacing of the contraction joints varies from 15 ft to 100 ft.
✓ In the contraction joint, the bar diameter varying from 7/8 to 1.25
in. being used with lengths generally varying from 14 to 18 in. and
spacing generally being 12-15 inch, center to center of the bars.
 d/2

Smooth, Lubricated

Figure- Typical Contraction Joint

❑ Hinge Joints
✓ Hinge joints are used mainly to reduce cracking along the center
line of highway pavements.
✓ Hinge joints are suitable for single lane at a time construction.
❑ Construction Joints

✓ Construction joints are placed transversely across the pavement

width to provide suitable transition between concrete laid at
different times. For example, a construction joint is usually placed
at the end of a day’s pour to provide suitable bonding with the start
of the next day’s pour.
✓ An expansion joint can be used in lie of a transverse construction
joint in cases where the construction joint falls at or near the same
position as the expansion joint.
❑ Longitudinal Joints

✓A longitudinal joint in a concrete pavement is a joint running

continuously the length of the pavement.
✓The purpose of longitudinal joints are to control the magnitude
of temperature warping stresses in such a fashion that
longitudinal cracking of the pavement will not occur.
✓The purpose of the tie bars in a longitudinal joint is to prevent
movement of one with respect to the other.
Joint fillers
▪ A material which is used for filling the joint is known as fillers.
▪ During rains, water will enter into joints. Entry of water into a
joint may cause deterioration of subgrade and may lead to failure
of the concrete.
▪ If the grit and stones become packed into the joint they may
prevent free expansion of the concrete.
▪ Due to these reasons, the joints ,must be filled with filler.

Characteristics
▪ Compressible
▪ Elastic, so that after compression it recovers most of its original
thickness when the joint opens
▪ Durable
▪ Sufficiently rigid to facilitate its support during construction
Filler Materials
▪ Soft wood
▪ Cork
▪ Bituminous materials
▪ Fiber boards

Sealer
Some depth at the top of the joint is filled with a material which
could seal the joints completely against the entrance of water. The
material which is used for sealing the joint is known as sealer.

Characteristics
▪ Good adhesion to concrete
▪ Durability
▪ Easy to apply and to resist damage by traffic a short time after
lying.
Types of sealing compounds
― Straight run asphalt used either alone or with the addition of
mineral filler
― Air-blown asphalt used either alone or with the addition of mineral
filler

Failure of joint sealant

― The adhesion failure is a loss of bond between the sealant and the
joint wall caused by a tensile load.
― The cohesion failure is a tearing of a sealant ,material, also under
tension.
― The extrusion failure occurs under the combined action of
compression and traffic.