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Article history: The problem of reflective cracks in asphalt pavements with semi-rigid bases has not yet been effectively
Received 4 September 2015 solved. This paper proposes a new construction method called continuous construction of the base and
Received in revised form 31 March 2016 asphalt layers (CCBA). In this method, an anti-cracking agent is added to the cement-stabilized base
Accepted 2 April 2016
material, and the asphalt pavement is applied when the base has been compacted but not initially set.
Laboratory tests of the anti-cracking agent were performed, and test roads in the field were evaluated.
The test roads showed that compared with the conventional construction technique (CCT), CCBA results
Keywords:
in fewer cracks, can protect the base from cracking, and strengthens the bond between the base and the
Continuous construction of the base and
asphalt layers (CCBA)
asphalt pavement.
Test road 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Reflective crack
Asphalt pavement
Anti-cracking agent
1. Introduction over other base materials, such as stabilized bases. These cracks
roughen the pavement and allow moisture to penetrate, causing
Asphalt pavements with semi-rigid bases have the advantages the pavement to deteriorate over the long term. A number of dif-
of high strength, good flatness and sound anti-fatigue performance ferent design strategies have been employed in an effort to slow
and have become the major type of pavement used for high-grade the development of reflective cracking, including increased overlay
highways in China. However, they are prone to reflective cracking thickness [2], joint sawing and sealing [3], pavement fracturing (for
under traffic loads and the influence of the external environment Portland cement concrete pavements) [4], stress relief layers [5],
[1]. It is widely recognized that the tensile and shearing stresses reinforcement layers [6,7], and composite geotextile interlayers
at the bottom of the asphalt layer that form under vehicle wheel [813]. The University of Illinois investigated the performance of
loads or environmental loads increases greatly when there are pavements constructed using interlayer stress-absorbing compos-
cracks in the base because of the stress concentration at the crack ite (ISAC)-based Portland cement concrete; these investigations
tips. Thus, if there are cracks in the semi-rigid base and the asphalt revealed that ISAC-based pavements demonstrate unparalleled
pavement is not sufficiently thick, further cracks will soon form. superiority over single-interlayer pavements, even in the worst
These cracks, which propagate in a flexible overlay over the exist- environments [14]. Microcracking is also a promising approach.
ing cracks, are called reflective cracks because they essentially The microcracking concept can be defined as the application of
reflect what is happening beneath them. Reflective cracks can several passes with vibratory rollers over a cement-treated base
occur in both Portland cement and asphalt pavements as well as following a short curing stage, typically of 13 days, to create a fine
network of cracks. Microcracking has proven quite effective at
reducing shrinkage cracking problems in pavement bases; a proce-
Corresponding author. dure consisting of three roller passes after 23 days of curing
E-mail address: autumn_luoh@163.com (H. Luo).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2016.04.012
0950-0618/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H. Fang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 119 (2016) 8088 81
8 hours limit
eliminate base cracks. However, preventing the base from cracking
Paving and compacting
is difficult, especially for cement-stabilized bases due to their base
inherent characteristics of dry shrinkage and temperature shrink-
age, accompanied by the negative effects of the conventional con-
struction technique (CCT) for asphalt pavement. CCT has some Paving and compacting
disadvantages. First, the water spray maintenance procedure may asphalt pavement
induce base cracks as a result of changes in the base volume caused (finished before base
by constant variation in water content. At this early stage, the material initial setting)
strength of the cement-stabilized base is too low to resist the About 3 days
resulting cycles of expansion and shrinkage. Second, during the
curing period, the base is exposed to the external environment Open to traffic
and is easily influenced by environmental factors such as air tem-
perature, solar radiation, and wind, which can cause thermal Fig. 1. CCBA procedure.
expansion and shrinkage and cause base cracks, especially with
large temperature differences between day and night. Third, the
base is highly likely to become contaminated during the long cur- Compared with the CCT, the most important changes in CCBA
ing period, which may impair the bond between the base and the lie in the steps in which the asphalt layer is paved and the road
asphalt layer. Finally, the long-term hindrance to transportation is opened to traffic. The construction of both the base and the
during the lengthy construction period that is required is some- asphalt layer (at least the sub-asphalt layer) must be completed
times intolerable, especially for emergency urban road repairs. To before the initial setting of the base material, as shown in Fig. 1.
overcome these construction disadvantages, a creative construc- Because compacting the cement-stabilized base after its initial set-
tion technique called continuous construction of the base and ting may destroy the integrity of the base and cause irreversible
asphalt layers (CCBA) is proposed in this paper. Furthermore, its damage, construction must be completed before this initial setting.
feasibility for solving the reflective cracking problem in asphalt Another change in CCBA is when the road can be opened to traffic.
pavement is investigated. An asphalt pavement constructed using the CCT is typically opened
In this paper, Section 1 reviews the topic of reflective cracking. to traffic immediately after the asphalt layer is compacted and
In Section 2, a creative construction technique called continuous cooled. However, this is not suitable for CCBA. A road constructed
construction of the base and asphalt layers is proposed. The addi- using the CCBA technique cannot be opened to traffic before the
tive required for CCBA, namely, the anti-cracking agent, is then cement-stabilized base has gained sufficient strength to endure
briefly introduced in Section 3. In Section 4, the test roads con- traffic loads, which usually requires several days. In the field road
structed in the field using this proposed technique are presented test presented in Section 4, the base strength was greater than
and discussed. Finally, the conclusions are presented. 2.5 MPa three days after paving, indicating that the test road could
be opened to traffic after three days.
CCBA is recommended to be conducted using at least one base
paver, one base roller, one asphalt mixture paver, and one asphalt
2. The presentation of CCBA mixture roller, as well as several vehicles for transferring materials.
The construction site arrangement is depicted in Fig. 2. The con-
To avoid the disadvantages of the CCT, an innovative construc- struction equipment is arranged in the following sequence: base
tion method called continuous construction of the base and asphalt pavers, base rollers, asphalt mixture pavers, and asphalt mixture
layers is proposed. rollers. During construction, the asphalt mixture paving and com-
The CCBA process is graphically presented in Fig. 1. The con- paction equipment is followed by the base material spreading and
struction process before base construction is the same as that for compaction equipment at approximately 50 m behind. The vehicle
the CCT. The difference arises after the sub-base is completed. In used to transfer the asphalt mixture transfers the mixture to the
CCBA, the subsequent step is to pave the base material, which asphalt concrete (AC) paver laterally rather than driving directly
has been mixed with a special additive, and to then continuously on the road being paved because the base roller and paver would
pave the asphalt layer immediately after the base is compacted. otherwise be in its way, as shown in Fig. 3. If the paver is allowed
Both sprinkler-based maintenance for curing the cement- to transfer the material laterally, then the transferring vehicle
stabilized base and the application of priming oil before paving should not drive on the newly paved base road. Otherwise, the
the asphalt layer are eliminated. In contrast, the CCT procedure transferring vehicle must drive across the paths of the base paver
includes the following steps: paving and compacting the base; cur- and roller and transfer the AC to the paver directly.
ing the base (usually for several days); applying priming oil, and The CCBA compaction scheme is essentially consistent with that
paving and compacting the asphalt layer; and opening the road of the CCT. Generally, the compaction scheme is determined based
to traffic. on the compaction results from field test roads. The ideal objective
82 H. Fang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 119 (2016) 8088
Asphalt mixture paver and roller Base mixture paver and roller
Table 1
Durability of limefly ash crushed stone mixture mixed with the anti-cracking agent.
Test project Cement-stabilized gravel with 6% anti-cracking agent Cement-stabilized gravel without anti-cracking agent
Wet and Dry Cycle (20 cycles) Strength Loss Ratio/% 44.9 2.3
Water Resistance (30 d) Strength Loss Ratio/% 17.1 1.9
Sulfate Corrosion Resistance Coefficient 1.18 1.04
Frost Resistance (7 cycles) Frozen Stability Coefficient 0.98 0.60
H. Fang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 119 (2016) 8088 85
Table 2
The field compaction test results.
Note: The underline indicates the utilized roller, and the number before the parentheses indicates how many times the roller compacted.
Table 3
Water content change of test road base.
Table 4
Early strength of drilling core samples of test roads.
loading rod
environmental cabinet
(b) front view of steel clamp (c) right view of steel clamp
steel clamp
steel clamp
asphalt
support block
interface
base
(a) schematic diagram of shear tester (d) top view of steel clamp (e) specimen structure diagram
Fig. 9. Schematic diagram of the shear tester and its steel clamp and a specimen.
Table 6
Road performance detection for test roads.
Pile No. Construction Width Operation time Evenness Deflection value Friction Cracks (per
method (m) (y) (m km1) (0.01 mm) coefficient km)
Hanyi Road K250K251 CCBA 12 0 1.8 23 48 0
4.5 2.0 22 44 2
9.5 2.5 28 37 11
Liangjiang Road K18 CCT 9 0 3.5 28 48 0
K19 4.5 4.0 56 42 96
9.5
Note: Due to the severity of its service quality, a new asphalt overlay (3 cm AC-10) was paved over Liangjiang Road in July 2014. Thus, Liangjiang Road could no longer be
compared to Hanyi Road.
H. Fang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 119 (2016) 8088 87
Moreover, the results shown in Table 4 prove that the initial related to the basic construction of the base layer are the com-
strength of the cement-stabilized base material is not undermined, paction degree, external dimensions (i.e., thickness, transverse
which indirectly verifies the presence of plenty of water for cement slope, flatness, etc.) and strength. Methods of fast, nondestructive
hydration even though the base is covered by the asphalt layer and testing can be adopted, such as non-nuclear electrical density
no additional water supply is provided from above. Furthermore, gauges (EDGs), to determine the degree of compaction; ground-
the temperature variation of the base also decreases because it is penetrating radar (GPR) can be applied after surface paving to
covered by the asphalt layer. As a result, the temperature shrinkage determine the external size; and the strength of the base can be
in the early stage is reduced to some extent. Moreover, the heat inversely calculated using FWD to comprehensively test the deflec-
transferred downward from the newly paved asphalt layer and tion of the pavement. In addition, with the emergence of intelligent
the heat from hydration of the base material can accelerate the compactors, routine site inspections can be performed based on
strength development of the base and enhance its crack resistance real-time feedback from a sensor mounted on the roller at the time
during the early stage. Additionally, the anti-cracking agent also of primary rolling [25,26], which will further enhance the feasibil-
enhances the crack resistance of the base. All of the factors men- ity of CCBA. However, the quality management task is rather com-
tioned above contribute to ensuring very little crack formation in plex because of the short duration of the construction process;
the base of the road paved using CCBA. As a result, fewer reflective further studies should be conducted to address this problem.
cracks occur in the asphalt pavement.
The bonding between the base and the asphalt overlay is also
5. Conclusions
enhanced by CCBA, as shown in Table 5. Many studies have shown
that stronger bonding leads to better structural performance in
This paper proposed a novel construction method called contin-
asphalt pavements [2224]. Better contact between the base and
uous construction of the base and asphalt layers (CCBA) and dis-
the asphalt pavement will result in less tensile stress at the bottom
cussed its feasibility for solving the problem of reflective
of the asphalt layer, leading to less damage to the asphalt pave-
cracking in asphalt pavement with a cement-stabilized base. In
ment. Because CCBA improves the contact state between the base
addition, a test road was built for field testing using this construc-
and the asphalt pavement, it enhances the crack resistance of an
tion technique. The results show that compared with the CCT,
asphalt pavement with a cement-stabilized base.
CCBA can lead to fewer reflective cracks in the asphalt pavement.
Although the test road constructed using CCBA demonstrated
The analysis indicates that CCBA can both reduce the base cracks
great success in mitigating reflective cracking in asphalt pavement
and enhance the bonding between the base and the asphalt pave-
with a cement-stabilized base, there are still several critical issues
ment, which contributes to limiting the reflection cracks in asphalt
that require further study, such as the compaction scheme for the
pavement.
road, and the methods of field inspection during construction.
The measured results for the compaction degrees of the test
roads are shown in Table 2. The observed compaction degree Acknowledgements
exceeds the theoretical maximum compaction degree of the base.
The quality of the base strongly depends on the compaction per- The work reported in this article is part of a project sponsored
formed in the field. Even a well-designed and well-produced base by the Natural Science Fund of China (Grant No. 51578261), the
mixture will demonstrate poor structural performance if the field Science and technology support program of Hubei Province, China
compaction is poor. Both under-compaction and over-compaction (Grant No. 2015BAA112) and the Fundamental Research Funds for
will result in unexpected road performance. For this reason, the the Central Universities (Grant No. 2015MS071).
compaction degree must be controlled within an acceptable range.
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