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Accelerated performance testing of concrete pavement with short slabs

Article  in  International Journal of Pavement Engineering · June 2011

DOI: 10.1080/10298436.2011.575134

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GPAV 575134—19/4/2011—RAJA.S—390217——Style 4

International Journal of Pavement Engineering

Vol. 00, No. 0, 2011, 1–14

Accelerated performance testing of concrete pavement with short slabs

5 60
Jeffery R. Roeslera, Victor G. Cervantesb and Armen N. Amirkhaniana*
a
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana– Champaign, Urbana, USA; bNAVFAC, Naval
Facilities Engineering Service Center, Port Hueneme, USA
(Received 24 September 2010; final version received 22 March 2011)
10 65
A new concept for designing concrete pavements by optimising the slab geometry in order to reduce the slab thickness as
well as to minimise the mechanical load transfer devices has recently been proposed. Theoretically, the reduced slab size
lowers the load and curling-induced tensile stresses and concomitantly a thinner concrete slab can be constructed. Full-scale
test sections were constructed and tested under accelerated pavement loading conditions to validate this design concept
hypothesis. The design and concrete material factors studied in this research were concrete thickness of 9, 15 or 20 cm;
15 70
granular or asphalt concrete base layer; and plain or fibre-reinforced concrete (FRC). A methodology was presented to
convert the channelised traffic loading to ESALs so that comparisons could be made between the various test sections. The
accelerated pavement testing showed that shorter slab sizes can sustain a significant number of overloads and greater number
of ESALs before developing cracking relative to standard jointed concrete pavements. The most prevalent distress observed
was corner cracking which occurred twice as much as longitudinal cracks, whereas only 3 out of 46 cracking distresses were
transverse cracks. The 20 cm concrete slabs on granular base did not experience fatigue cracking for trafficking up to
20 75
51 million ESALs. The 15 cm concrete slabs on granular base began cracking on an average of 11 million ESALs. As
expected, the concrete slabs on asphalt base resisted a significant larger number of ESALs relative to the same concrete
thickness on granular base. The cracking performance of the 9 cm concrete slabs on granular base varied with the stiffness of
the soil. For the 9 cm slab thickness, structural fibres provided a longer fatigue life and extended service life relative to the
plain concrete slabs. Finally, the smaller slab sizes maintained a medium-to-high load transfer efficiency over the
accelerated loading period for all slab thicknesses without the development of any faulting. As expected, these slab systems
25 80
resulted in higher deflections, and, therefore, the granular base and subgrade layers as well as lateral drainage system must
be designed and specified to reduce the rate of permanent deformation and minimise the possibility of support erosion.
Keywords: concrete pavements; short slab geometry; full-scale testing; accelerated testing

30 1. Introduction sizes become larger, the susceptibility of the pavement 85

One factor linked to the favourable performance of
concrete pavements is the slab geometry (Darter et al.
1985, AASHTO 1993, Smith et al. 1998, ARA 2007).
Jointed reinforced concrete pavements were originally
35 designed to limit the number of joints and increase the
pavement smoothness, but this concrete pavement type
eventually resulted in many intermediate panel cracks and
large movements at the joint. Continuously reinforced
concrete pavements were designed to avoid man-made
40
contraction joints by providing continuous reinforcing
steel which would produce short crack spacings and
ultimately, a smooth riding surface. Conventional jointed
plain concrete pavements (JPCP) with 3.7 –5.0 m joint
45 spacing have also produced long service lives in the US
(Smith et al. 1998, Yu et al. 1998a). With these slab sizes,
the thicknesses generally range from 15 to 36 cm. For a
mechanistic – empirical procedure, the design thickness
primarily depends on the expected axle weights, number of
50 load repetitions, concrete strength, slab dimensions,
subgrade support and local climate conditions. As slab
system to temperature, moisture curling and excessive
joint openings increases.
There have been numerous studies over the years on
built-in curling, and it has been reported to be quite high in
some regions due to the local climate conditions (Hveem 90
1951, Larrain 1985, Armaghani et al. 1987, Poblete et al.
1988, Eisenmann and Leykauf 1990, Bustos et al. 1998,
Yu et al. 1998b, Hansen et al. 2000, Vandenbossche 2003a,
2003b, Rao and Roesler 2005, Rojas-Torrico 2008).
With the presence of large built-in curling, mechanistic – 95
empirical designs with conventional slab sizes can result in
larger required thicknesses (ARA 2007, Hiller 2007) and
alternative failure locations (Hiller and Roesler 2005).
With excessive built-in curling, conventional JPCP may
not be the most economical pavement system to construct. 100
In an effort to improve the cost-benefit of new rigid
pavements, a design concept was proposed that would
shorten the slab size to allow only one wheel load per slab
as well as reduce the curling stresses, yet still provide the
required fatigue life for a given thickness (Covarrubias 105
and Covarrubias 2008). Previous research on ultra-thin

*Corresponding author. Email: amirkha1@illinois.edu

55 110
ISSN 1029-8436 print/ISSN 1477-268X online
q 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/10298436.2011.575134
http://www.informaworld.com
GPAV 575134—19/4/2011—RAJA.S—390217——Style 4
2 J.R. Roesler et al.
whitetopping has shown that smaller slab sizes (1.2 –
1.8 m) improve the performance of this concrete
rehabilitation option (Mack et al. 1997, ACPA 1998,
Vandenbossche and Fagerness 2002, Roesler et al. 2008).
115 With the introduction of this new short slab design
concept, many questions arise regarding the fatigue life of
the concrete, stability of the base layer and joint behaviour.
A full-scale testing plan was developed to validate the
viability of the design concept, to provide fatigue data for
120 calibrating the design software (Covarrubias 2009,
Covarrubias et al. 2010) and to evaluate the performance
of the base layer and joints under repeated loading.
125 2. Experimental plan
In order to determine the fatigue and joint performance of
concrete pavements with shorter slab sizes, accelerated
pavement testing (APT) was conducted. The purpose of
APT is not to traffic the pavement with similar wheel load
130 and repetitions experienced in typical roadways, because
this would take a prohibitive amount of time. The main
objective is to overload the test section with the APT
device so that slab failure occurs in a shorter amount of
time and then the results are equated to standard loading
135 levels and repetitions expected for in-service pavements.
140
145
150
155
160
Figure 1. Accelerated concrete pavement test section for short-jointed slabs: (a) Section 1 with 10 and 15 cm sections on asphalt
concrete base, (b) Section 2, comparison of 15 and 20 cm sections on an aggregate base and (c) Section 3, comparison of 9 cm section on
165 aggregate base with and without FRC (not to scale).
Three 40 m test sections were constructed contiguously to
determine the effects of the slab thickness, base stiffness
and concrete mixture on the concrete pavement perform-
ance. A single lane of 3.6 m wide was constructed and
saw-cut into 1.8 m slab sizes. Figure 1(a) shows the 14 170
slabs on test Section 1 that were loaded with the APT
device. Slabs 5– 11 are the 10 cm slabs, whereas slabs
12 –18 are 15 cm thick. These slabs were supported by
21.5 and 14 cm asphalt concrete base, respectively, on a
silty – clay soil. Section 2, shown in Figure 1(b), consisted 175
of 15 and 20 cm of concrete thickness over 15 cm
aggregate base. Slabs 27 –33 are the 15 cm thick slabs and
34 –40 are the 20 cm slab thicknesses. Figure 1(c) is the
layout for Section 3 which consists of 9 cm slab thickness
over a 15 cm aggregate base. The test variable in this 180
section is that half of the slabs are plain concrete (slabs
49 –55), while the remaining slabs (slabs 56 – 62) contain
FRC. The slab numbers not listed above were locations
where the APT machine’s supports sat on the pavement
surface. There were no dowels or tie bars in any of the test 185
section and no joint sealants were used.
The Accelerated Transportation Loading ASsembly
(ATLAS), seen in Figure 2, was utilised to complete the
response and failure testing of the three test sections using
the unidirectional testing mode. The ATLAS applied 190
195
200
205
210
215
220
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International Journal of Pavement Engineering 3

225 280

230 285

235 290

Figure 2. ATLAS device shown with aircraft tyre.

240
approximately 2500 repetitions per day over a 26 m loading
length. For most of the testing, an aircraft tyre was used
except for trafficking on Section 3 with a wide-based single
tyre (Michelin X One). All of the test sections were exposed
245 to the effects of ambient conditions and ATLAS loading
except for Section 3 (north) where environmental panels
enclosed the test section. By combining the results of the
full-scale tests with a mechanistic – empirical analysis
approach, a design procedure to optimise the slab geometry
250 for a given traffic level, soil support value and climate
condition can be developed (Covarrubias 2009, 2010).
295
was approximately 333 kg/m3 with 25% replacement of
Type C fly ash. The water-to-cement ratio was 0.42. The
dolomite coarse aggregate had a maximum aggregate size
of 25 mm. The average flexural strength (ASTM C78)
measured at 90 days was 6.7 MPa. Synthetic macro-fibres 300
were added at a dosage of 3.6 kg/m3 for the FRC test
Section 3b. This level of fibres was selected to achieve an
equivalent flexural strength ratio (R150
150 ) of 30% (Roesler
et al. 2008) based on the measured residual strength (f 150
150 )
from ASTM C1609-07. A superplasticiser was also added 305
at the site to promote uniform dispersion of the fibres in the
concrete.

3. Pavement layers and materials

255 The subgrade material supporting the test section was 4. Falling weight deflectometer 310
primarily a brown silty – clay with trace sand. The One month after the construction of the 120 m test section,
maximum dry density (ASTM D1557) for the soil was falling weight deflectometer testing was conducted on the
determined to be 1962 kg/m3 at an optimum moisture north section of slabs (number 1 –65). The centre slab
content of 10.7% and was compacted to a minimum of 95% normalised deflections are plotted vs. the slab number in
260 maximum dry density. Dynamic cone penetration tests Figure 3 and confirms the expected trends. The deflections 315
were conducted on the subgrade shortly after compaction. are smallest when the concrete slabs are supported by the
Correlated CBR values for the subgrade ranged from 4 to stiffer asphalt concrete layer (Section 1) or thicker slabs
20 depending on the spatial location on the 120 m test (15 vs. 20 cm) in Section 2. The highest deflection was
section and in situ soil moisture content. To achieve a more observed on slab 56 which is the transition between the
265 free-draining granular base layer and to minimise the 9 cm plain and FRC section but there was no deflection 320
pumping potential, a graded dolomite material with a difference between the plain and FRC slabs.
maximum aggregate size of 25 mm was utilised. This
material had approximately 6% fines passing the 75 m sieve Table 1. Concrete mixture design.
and a maximum dry density of 2140 kg/m3 at an optimum
Material Quantity (kg/m3)
270 moisture content of 4.8%. Prior to the placement of the 325
granular base, a 400 g/m2 non-woven geotextile was Coarse aggregate 1128
Fine aggregate 720
inserted between subgrade and subbase to avoid pen- Cement 250
etration and mixing of these two unstabilised materials. Fly ash (type C) 83
The concrete mixture design for the test sections is Water 140
275 shown in Table 1. The total cementitious content 330
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4 J.R. Roesler et al.
335
340
345
350
355
Figure 3. Centre slab 40 kN normalised deflections (solid line) and load transfer efficiencies (dashed line) on north lane.
360 Due to the short slab sizes, only 52% of the joints had
fully propagated cracks by the end of the first month, and
thus, dominant joints were present on the test sections. In
fact, with the reduced stresses in shorter slabs, only 54
out of 65 of the contraction joints had formed after four
365 months. Figure 3 shows the load transfer efficiency
(LTE) across all the joints after the first month. Joints 20,
23, 32, 35, 45 and 55 had an initial LTE less than 80%
and they all propagated within 2 weeks after casting the
section.
370
5. ATLAS load history and repetition conversion
factor
As shown in Figure 1, almost all trafficking of the ATLAS
375 wheel load (40 – 156 kN) occurred near the north or south
longitudinal free edge. Trafficking to failure in the wheel
path occurred on Section 3 (north lane) and was also used
to gather responses on Sections 1 and 2. A summary of the
entire loading sequence for each test section is given in
380 Tables 2 –4 for Sections 1– 3, respectively.
APT typically exposes the test section to loading
conditions that will cause significant levels of pavement
damage (cracking) at a relatively lower number of wheel
passes. The accelerated pavement damage induced by
385 overloading must then be related to more commonly
390
395
400
405
410
understood loading terms used in pavement design, such 415
as ESALs. In past research efforts with APT, the use of
individual wheel loads, number of load repetitions and
Miner’s cumulative damage approach have not necessarily
resulted in a better cracking predictions relative to ESALs
(Rao and Roesler 2004, Rao 2005, Kohler and Roesler 420
2006). For this study, the following equation was used to
correlate the number of wheel passes at a given load level
and edge offset to the equivalent number of ESALs:

4:2
P 425
ESAL ¼ b * n * ; ð1Þ
40
where b is a channelised magnification factor approxi-
mately equal to 20 for channelised edge loading on JPCP
(Packard 1984, Zollinger and Barenberg 1989), n is the 430
number of passes for a given wheel load, P, and the
exponent 4.2 approximately represents the load equival-
ency factors from the AASHO Road Test and is also
used by the California Department of Transportation to
calculate ESALs (Caltrans 2008). 435
In order to establish a lateral wander magnification
factor (b) for each section and wheel offset, a finite
element analysis using ILLISLAB (Khazanovich 1994)
was required. The modulus of subgrade reaction (k) for
each of the test sections, shown in Table 5, was 440
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International Journal of Pavement Engineering 5

Table 2. ATLAS loading pattern for Section 1.

10 cm 15 cm
Load [kN] Passes Cumulative ESALs Percent cracked Cumulative ESALs Percent cracked
445 500
Section 1 south (10 cm b ¼ 20, 15 cm b ¼ 20)
40.0 2506 5.01 E4 0.0 5.01 E4 0.0
66.7 2500 4.77 E5 0.0 4.77 E5 0.0
80.1 2500 1.40 E6 0.0 1.40 E6 0.0
93.4 3499 3.85 E6 0.0 3.85 E6 0.0
111 1126 5.50 E6 14.3 5.50 E6 0.0
450 505
111 1211 7.27 E6 28.6 7.27 E6 0.0
124 2300 1.27 E7 71.4 1.27 E7 0.0
137 2200 2.06 E7 71.4 2.06 E7 0.0
151 25 2.07 E7 71.4 2.07 E7 0.0
156 2730 3.71 E7 85.7 3.71 E7 14.3
156 1170 4.41 E7 100.0 4.41 E7 14.3
455 510
147 1642 5.18 E7 100.0 5.18 E7 14.3
147 347 5.35 E7 100.0 5.35 E7 14.3
147 274 5.48 E7 100.0 5.48 E7 14.3
147 62 5.50 E7 100.0 5.50 E7 14.3
156 416 5.75 E7 100.0 5.75 E7 14.3
460 Section 1 north (10 cm b ¼ 20, 15 cm b ¼ 20) 515
40.0 2700 5.40 E4 0.0 5.40 E4 0.0
66.7 2500 4.81 E5 0.0 4.81 E5 0.0
93.4 2230 2.05 E6 85.7 2.05 E6 0.0
93.4 270 2.24 E6 85.7 2.24 E6 0.0
111 136 2.44 E6 85.7 2.44 E6 0.0
465 111 2680 6.35 E6 100.0 6.35 E6 0.0 520
133 4870 2.16 E7 0.0
156 500 2.46 E7 14.3
156 1000 3.07 E7 14.3
156 3500 5.17 E7 28.6
156 2954 6.94 E7 57.1
470 525

backcalculated from ILLISLAB based on the measured allowable repetitions (Na):

deflections from a wheel load of 10 cm offset from the free
 s 4
475 edge. The tensile stresses at the bottom of the mid-slab n
N a ¼ 225; 000 * ; ð2Þ 530
edge as the load was moved laterally in 2.5 cm increments MOR
(0 – 50 cm) were then determined. One significant chal-
lenge in determining the channelised magnification factor where sn is the stress at a given distance from the edge and
(b) was the choice of the fatigue algorithm to translate the MOR is the modulus of rupture of the concrete. As all
480 tensile stresses to allowable number of repetitions. Most of the trafficking was channelised, the magnification factor 535
the concrete fatigue algorithms are extremely sensitive to (b) for each section was calculated using a ratio of the
changes in tensile stresses, and, therefore, only wheel longitudinal edge fatigue damage produced at the
loads adjacent to the slab edge contribute to the fatigue channelised trafficking offset over the fatigue damage
damage. The approach published by Zollinger and produced by a load in the wheel path (45 cm offset):
485 Barenberg (1989) and the Portland Cement Association 0 1 540
ne ðxÞ
(Packard 1984) was attempted with several concrete N allowðxÞ
fatigue algorithms without success for these shorter b ¼ @  A; ð3Þ
ne ðxÞ
concrete slab geometries. N allowð45Þ
A fatigue equation developed by Vesic and Saxena
490 (1969) based on the AASHO Road Test concrete sections where ne is the expected number of passes at some lateral 545
was finally selected because it was based on full-scale offset (x), Nallow is the number of allowable passes at that
traffic with wander, concrete slabs on a granular base layer lateral offset and Nallow(45) is the number of allowable
and the concrete slabs failed under various modes, i.e. passes at 45 cm offset. As expected, this magnification
erosion and cracking. The Vesic and Saxena (1969) fatigue factor is a function of the slab thickness and base type.
495 equation, given next, was used to calculate the number of Table 5 lists the magnification factor used to calculate 550
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6 J.R. Roesler et al.

Table 3. ATLAS loading pattern for Section 2.

15 cm 20 cm
Load [kN] Passes Cumulative ESALs Percent cracked Cumulative ESALs Percent cracked
555 610
Section 2 south (15 cm b ¼ 19, 20 cm b ¼ 16)
40.0 5375 1.02 E5 0.0 8.76 E4 0.0
40.0 1912 1.39 E5 0.0 1.19 E5 0.0
66.7 6000 1.12 E6 0.0 9.55 E5 0.0
66.7 150 1.14 E6 0.0 9.75 E5 0.0
89.0 2850 2.70 E6 0.0 2.30 E6 0.0
560 615
89.0 2265 3.94 E6 0.0 3.36 E6 0.0
89.0 5112 6.73 E6 0.0 5.74 E6 0.0
111 6995 1.65 E7 28.6 1.41 E7 0.0
111 2651 2.01 E7 42.9 1.72 E7 0.0
111 1655 2.25 E7 42.9 1.92 E7 0.0
156 75 2.29 E7 57.1 1.96 E7 0.0
565 620
Section 2 north (15 cm b ¼ 18, 20 cm b ¼ 15)
40.0 2850 5.01 E4 0.0 4.39 E4 0.0
40.0 150 5.28 E4 0.0 4.62 E4 0.0
66.7 3187 5.32 E5 14.3 4.66 E5 0.0
66.7 1913 8.20 E5 14.3 7.17 E5 0.0
570 66.7 100 8.35 E5 14.3 7.31 E5 0.0 625
80.1 5000 2.45 E6 14.3 2.15 E6 0.0
93.4 5000 5.54 E6 14.3 4.85 E6 0.0
111 816 6.59 E6 14.3 5.77 E6 0.0
111 1801 8.91 E6 57.1 7.79 E6 0.0
111 640 9.73 E6 57.1 8.51 E6 0.0
575 120 2405 1.40 E7 57.1 1.23 E7 0.0 630
133 200 1.45 E7 57.1 1.27 E7 0.0
156 200 1.56 E7 71.4 1.37 E7 0.0
156 150 1.64 E7 71.4 1.44 E7 0.0
156 32 1.66 E7 85.7 1.45 E7 0.0
111 292 1.69 E7 85.7 1.48 E7 0.0
580 111 152 1.50 E7 0.0 635
156 300 1.64 E7 0.0
156 7070 4.91 E7 0.0
111 2000 5.13 E7 0.0

585
ESALs for each test section. During the trafficking of the
sections, the wheel was typically offset from the free edge
of approximately 13 cm, and thus, the magnification factor
590
Table 4. ATLAS loading pattern for Section 3.
640
for all sections was calculated at this offset with a
maximum value of 20 (Cervantes 2009). A magnification
factor was not used when the wheel load was trafficked
greater than 30 cm from the edge.
645

Percent slabs cracked 6. Slab cracking performance

Cumulative
Load [kN] Passes ESAL PCC FRC The slab’s cracking patterns were documented in order to
determine the failure modes of the various sections and
Section 3 south
595 how they continued to deteriorate with trafficking. A full 650
22.2 2643 4477 0.0 0.0
22.2 2778 9183 0.0 0.0 description of the crack development on each section can be
40.0 3000 69,183 0.0 0.0 found in Roesler and Cervantes (2009). Figures 4–6 are
40.0 309 75,363 0.0 0.0 typical failure patterns for Sections 1–3, respectively, at the
40.0 5875 192,863 57.1 14.3 end of the accelerated load testing. Cracking patterns varied
40.0 2053 233,923 57.1 28.6
600 depending on the location of the wheel load, thickness of 655
53.4 10 234,592 100.0 42.9
the slab and deformation levels in the base layers. Overall,
Section 3 north (wheelpath) a total of 46 slabs developed fatigue cracks out of the 84
40.0 2509 2509 0.0 0.0
40.0 451 2960 85.7 14.3
slabs tested on the three test sections. Corner breaks were
40.0 1585 4545 N/A 28.6 61% of the cracking distresses observed followed by
605 longitudinal cracking at 33% and only 6% transverse 660
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International Journal of Pavement Engineering 7

Table 5. Backcalculated modulus of subgrade reaction (k) values and magnification factor (b) for each section.

Slab/base description Section number Section location k (MPa/m) Magnification factor

10 cm/Asphalt 1 North/south 68 20
665 15 cm/Asphalt 1 North/south 136 20 720
15 cm/Granular 2 South 81 19
15 cm/Granular 2 North 27 18
20 cm/Granular 2 South 41 16
20 cm/Granular 2 North 27 15
9 cm/Granular 3 South 41 20
670 9 cm/Granular 3 Northa 14 20 725
a
30 cm offset

cracks. As the maximum calculated tensile stress occurred This equation assumes that a terminal serviceability of 2.5
675 at the bottom of the mid-slab edge under fully supported is reached when cracking is between 0 and 20%, whereas 730
conditions, the appearance of longitudinal and corner 100% cracking has a PSIt of 1.0. Table 6 lists the AASHTO
cracks as the predominant distress confirmed a change in predicted ESALs for the same concrete thickness at
base/subgrade support stiffness had occurred with increased 90% reliability, standard deviation of 0.35, load transfer
load level and repetitions. The support change can be seen coefficient (J) of 3.2 and a drainage coefficient of 0.9. The
680 in Figure 7 which tracks the increase in the slab’s rebound composite k-value, shown in Table 6, was modified from 735
deflection with repetitions for a constant load level. the soil k-value listed in Table 5 for the stabilised base
Table 6 is a summary of the maximum fatigue cracking stiffness and thickness in Section 1. As seen in Table 6, the
measured on each test section vs. the total applied ESALs.
As expected, the thicker slabs and the same thickness slab
685 with a stiffer base layer resisted more ESALs until a 740
similar level of cracking. Figure 8 graphically presents the Slab 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
development of fatigue cracking as a function of ESALs
for several slab thicknesses on both base types.
In order to evaluate the viability of short-jointed slabs
690 with conventional JPCP, the APT traffic results were 745
compared with the allowable traffic from the AASHTO
Slab 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
(1993) design guide. The first step in this comparison is to
relate the observed cracking at the end of the service life to
a terminal serviceability (PSIt). The following equation
695 was developed to estimate PSI as a function of slabs 750
cracked (C) only, because roughness was not measured
during testing. Figure 5. Section 2 (south) cracking performance after
trafficking (15 cm ¼ 22.9 million ESALs; 20 cm ¼ 20 million
ESALs; Slabs 27 – 33 are 15 cm and slabs 34 – 40 are 20 cm).
PSI ¼ 2:875 2 0:01875C; 20 # C # 100: ð4Þ
700 755

Slab 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Slab 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

705 760

Slab 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Slab 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

710 765

Figure 4. Section 1 (south) cracking performance after 57.5 Figure 6. Section 3 (south) final cracking performance after
million ESALs (slabs 5 – 11 are 10 cm and slabs 12 –18 are 234,000 ESALs (slabs 49 – 55 are 9 cm plain concrete and slabs
715 15 cm). 56 – 62 are 9 cm FRC). 770
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8 J.R. Roesler et al.

775 830

780 835

785 840

790 845

795 850

800 855

805 860
Figure 7. (a) Rebound deflections for the 9 cm plain concrete section for slabs 51, 52 and 53; (b) Rebound deflection of the 9 cm FRC
slab over a granular base (Section 3 south).

Table 6. Maximum fatigue cracking and ESALs for accelerated pavement test sections and AASHTO predicted ESALs at the estimated
810 terminal serviceability. 865

Composite Estimated terminal AASHTO

Thickness Location Base type k-value [MPa/m] Total ESALs Slabs cracked serviceability predicted ESALs
10 cm 1-South Asphalt 190 4.4 E7 100.0% 1.0 3.2 E6
10 cm 1-North Asphalt 190 6.4 E6 100.0% 1.0 3.2 E6
815 15 cm 1-South Asphalt 136 3.7 E7 14.3% 2.5 3.2 E6 870
15 cm 1-North Asphalt 136 6.9 E7 57.1% 1.8 4.2 E6
15 cm 2-South Granular 81 2.3 E7 57.1% 1.8 2.8 E6
15 cm 2-North Granular 27 1.7 E7 85.7% 1.3 1.6 E6
20 cm 2-South Granular 41 2.0 E7 0.0% 2.5 6.8 E6
20 cm 2-North Granular 27 5.1 E7 0.0% 2.5 5.9 E6
820 9 cm Plain 3-Southa Granular 41 2.3 E5 100.0% 1.0 2.4 E5 875
9 cm FRC 3-Southa Granular 41 2.3 E5 42.9% 2.1 2.0 E5
9 cm Plain 3-Northb Granular 14 2.9 E3 85.7% 1.3 9.6 E4
9 cm FRC 3-Northb Granular 14 4.5 E3 28.6% 2.3 8.9 E4
a
Frozen tests sustained 229,000 ESALs without cracking.
825 b 880
Spring thaw testing period.
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International Journal of Pavement Engineering
885
890
895
900
905 Figure 8. Percentage of cracked slabs on aggregate and asphalt base vs. ESALs.
only short-jointed section that did not sustain more ESALs
than the conventional JPCP from AASHTO was Section 3
north. The main reason for this performance was the
910
testing that was completed during a thaw period of the soil
and base layer, which lead to a premature failure. Overall,
the APT has shown that the fatigue performance of short-
jointed slabs in terms of ESALs significantly exceeds the
allowable traffic calculated from the 1993 AASHTO
915
design guide for conventional JPCP.
7. Joint performance and LTE
920 One proposed advantage of concrete slabs with optimised
geometry is the potential for limiting the placement of
mechanical load transfer devices. The transverse contrac-
tion joints in the various test sections relied on aggregate
interlock as the primary load transfer mechanism. There
925 was no measurable faulting on any transverse contraction
joints although loading speeds were less than 10 km/h. In
order to further support the limited usage of dowels across
the transverse contraction joints, the LTE across the joints
must be maintained at a certain level throughout the
930 testing. Deflection LTE values were calculated vs. load
repetitions for several instrumented joints. The LTE for
Section 3 was above 90% during the entire test for both
plain and FRC. The LTE for Section 1 was highly
influenced by the thick asphalt base layer. As shown in
935 Figure 9 for Section 2, the range of LTE at the start of the
9
940
945
950
955
960
testing was between 100 and 80% for the 15 and 20 cm
concrete slabs. This initial response resulted from the
dominant joint effect, i.e. joints that cracked early tended
965
to have a greater crack width than joints that propagated
later. The LTE for joint 30 and 37 fell below 40% at about
7000 passes but recovered to about 70% at the end of
testing. The instrumented joints in Section 2 (north and
south) converged to an LTE approximately of 70%,
970
suggesting that the slabs more evenly distributed the joint
movement between adjacent slabs as the load repetitions
increased. The accelerated pavement test data suggested
that the slabs with optimised geometry can have sufficient
joint performance without load transfer devices for low-to-
975
medium traffic volume facilities. Whether the joints will
continue to function at a high level over a 20-year period
given higher speeds and ESAL loadings is still uncertain,
but as noted, several sections did have adequately
performing joints at 50 million ESALs under the APT.
980
Several potential solutions for extending joint perform-
ance and reliability for higher speed and ESAL loadings
may be targeted doweling systems or addition of structural
fibres.
985
8. Size effect on concrete slab fatigue life and
overloads
Researchers have recognised that the specimen size (e.g.
thickness) affects the concrete’s nominal strength (Bazant 990
GPAV 575134—19/4/2011—RAJA.S—390217——Style 4

10 J.R. Roesler et al.

40.0 kN Loading 66.7 kN Loading 89.0 kN Loading 111 kN Loading

100 60

90
50
995 80 1050

70
40

Temperature (˚C)
Efficiency (%)
60

50 30
1000 1055
40
20
30

20
10
1005 10 1060

0 0
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000
Passes

Joint 29 Joint 36
1010 Surface Temp. 1065
Joint 30 Joint 37

Figure 9. Deflection LTE for edge loading (Section 2 south).

1015
and Planas 1998). This translates into thinner specimens
having a greater nominal strength than thicker concrete
specimens with the same geometric ratios and boundary
conditions. Rao (2005) developed curves based on
1020 Bazant’s size effect method (Bazant and Kazemi 1990)
to account for the decrease in apparent strength as concrete
slab thickness increased to explain full-scale test results of
varying slab thickness. Roesler (2006) also summarised
the results of historical beam and slab tests which clearly
1025 demonstrated that the beam flexural strength test under-
estimated the slab concrete flexural strength by a factor of
1.3 –2.8. This ratio was related to the type of concrete
material (plain vs. FRC), the thickness of the slab and the
non-dimensional slab size.
1030 The ATLAS tests results support these previous
findings on the size effect. Figure 10 shows the monotonic
load – displacement results for several of the 9 and 15 cm
slabs extracted from the APT sections and tested in a large-
scale laboratory soil box. The mean peak load capacity for
1035 the 9 cm FRC slabs was 78 kN, whereas the 15 cm had a
mean peak load capacity of 110 kN. These peak values
should be considered an upper limit because the support
condition was not subjected to repeated or moving wheel
loads or varying climatic conditions. For the slab tests
1040 shown in Figure 10, the measured concrete beam flexural
strength was 6.7 MPa which translated into maximum load
capacity of 28 kN and 75 kN for the 9 cm FRC slab and the
15 cm plain concrete slab, respectively. The measured load
capacity of the two slab thicknesses (9 and 15 cm) was
1045 approximately 2.8 and 1.5 times their beam predicted
1070
capacities, respectively. The interaction between the crack
growth, concrete fracture properties, slab geometry and
boundary condition (soil foundation) is the main reason for
the discrepancy with simply supported concrete beam
tests. Furthermore, the 9 cm FRC slab relative to the 15 cm 1075
plain concrete slab results demonstrates the size effect and
fracture properties effects on the slab capacity. Since the
slabs were not geometrically similar as the thickness was
changed, it is difficult to conclude if there was a strong
thickness size effect. However, a correction factor to 1080
account for the scaling of beam flexural to slab flexural
strength based on the thickness of the slab has been
implemented into the short-jointed slab design software
(Covarrubias et al. 2010) to explain the slab cracking
1085
behaviour differences shown in Figure 10.
Overloaded axles are the main reason why concrete
pavements fail prematurely. The results of the APT and the
monotonic load tests have positive implications for the
design of concrete pavements in corridors where over- 1090
loaded vehicles are expected or weight enforcement is
insufficient. During the APT loading, the 20 cm concrete
slab on granular base was able to resist over 7000
repetitions of 156 kN wheel load (16 t) and a total of 51.3
million ESALs without any slab cracking. Likewise, the 1095
single wheel load capacity of the 15 cm slabs was
approximately 110 kN and the 20 cm slab is anticipated to
have an even greater load capacity. The APT and laboratory
testing results suggest that the 20 cm slab thickness with
1.8 m panel sizes can provide an extended-life concrete 1100
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International Journal of Pavement Engineering
1105
1110
1115
1120
1125
Figure 10. Monotonic load tests for the 9 cm FRC and 15 cm plain concrete slabs.
1130
pavement as well as sustain a significant number of
overloads.
1135 9. Effects of support layer stiffness
The base and subgrade stiffness is an important parameter
in designing the thickness of concrete pavements with
optimised slab geometry as seen in Figure 8. As the slab
thicknesses are less than conventional JPCP with 4.5 m
1140 joint spacing, the deformations accumulating in the
underlying layers are more critical. The trafficking of the
sections at different times of the year relayed some insight
into how the support conditions extended or decreased the
fatigue life of the sections. When the trafficking was done
1145 in the winter (January 2008) with a frozen base and
subgrade layer, 9 cm slabs (Section 3) were able to sustain
more than 229,000 ESALs without developing any
distresses. When this same section was tested in the
spring (April 2008), it began showing corner fatigue
1150 cracks at around 75,000 ESALs. Wheel path testing on
Section 3 (north) during a thaw cycle in March 2009
resulted in significant cracking after 3000 ESALs. The
backcalculated k-values for these sections are shown in
Table 5, 41 and 14 MPa/m, respectively. This weaker
1155 support condition and likely non-uniformity was directly
11
1160
1165
1170
1175
1180
1185
correlated with the adverse performance of Section 3
(north).
In the thicker slab sections, the k-value had less of an
influence on the performance of the slab because the
stresses in the underlying foundation layers were smaller. 1190
The 20 cm concrete slabs in Section 2 south and north had
k-values of 41 and 27 MPa/m, respectively, and resisted the
largest number of ESALs without failure, 19.6 and 51.3
million ESALs, respectively (see Table 3). The 15 cm slabs
in Section 2 were somewhat influenced by the soil support 1195
layer. The south section had an initial k-value of 81 MPa/m
and eventually had four cracked slabs at 22.9 million
ESALs. On Section 2 (north), the 15 cm slabs had
experienced six out of seven slabs cracked at 16.5 million
ESALs with a k-value of 27 MPa/m. 1200
Section 1 included an asphalt concrete support layer
over the natural subgrade. The backcalculated k-value for
both the north and south section for the 15 cm slabs was
136 MPa/m. In terms of cracking performance, the south
and north sections had one slab cracked at 37.1 and 24.6 1205
million ESALs. The 10 cm slabs over asphalt concrete
base on Section 1 (north) were much more distressed with
six out of seven slabs cracked at 2 million relative to 37.1
ESALs on the south edge. Although the backcalculated
k-value for both sides (10 cm slab) was approximately 1210
GPAV 575134—19/4/2011—RAJA.S—390217——Style 4
12 J.R. Roesler et al.
68 MPa/m, the concrete slabs lost support due to
trafficking during rainy days without a sufficient drainage
system, thereby resulting in higher distresses on the north
set of slabs on Section 1.
1215
10. Effects of structural fibres on fatigue cracking
and serviceability
Full-scale testing of FRC slabs in the early 1970s by the
1220
US Army Corps of Engineers demonstrated the enhanced
fatigue life of FRC over plain concrete slabs (Parker 1974,
Rollings 1981). More recent research with application to
slab on ground design has shown significant enhancement
in concrete slab cracking performance by the addition
1225
of structural fibres (Beckett 1990, Falkner et al. 1995,
Roesler et al. 2004). Finally, theoretical analysis of the
flexural capacity of FRC slabs using a fracture-based
cohesive zone modelling in a finite element framework has
clearly demonstrated that the increased load capacity
1230
fibrous slabs have over plain concrete slabs (Gaedicke
2009).
The APT of 9 cm slabs with and without structural
fibres clearly confirmed their benefit to extending the
fatigue and service life of plain concrete slabs as seen in
1235
Table 5. The deflection response differences can be seen
when comparing the 9 cm plain concrete with the FRC
slabs in Figure 7. The variation in deflection between
joints and slabs is much smaller for the FRC section. The
increase in load-carrying capacity afforded by the addition
1240
of fibres comes without the need to increase the concrete’s
flexural strength (Roesler et al. 2004). The fibres also
helped extend the service life of the FRC slabs by
maintaining vertical and horizontal slab alignments. In
addition, structural fibres aided in maintaining high LTE
1245
across the transverse and longitudinal contraction joints
throughout the concrete pavement’s life. For designs with
thin slabs (, 15 cm) fibres can be used to prevent
differential slab horizontal movement due to braking and
tyre friction and can eliminate the need for lateral
1250
restraining pins to hold tight the longitudinal contraction
joint. Finally, the severity of the cracking was less on the
FRC section relative to the plain concrete.
1255
11. Pavement design and material considerations
The APT results have shown that the fatigue resistance of
the short-jointed slab concept is better to the equivalent
thickness of conventional jointed slabs designed by
1260 AASHTO (1993; see Table 6). However, there are
unanswered questions on the long-term performance of
undowelled joints with short slabs, the stability of the
granular base especially under higher traffic volumes, and
their collective effects on IRI. Faulting develops as a result
1265 of base erosion from high deflections, available moisture
and erodible material. It is clear from the AASHO Road
Test (HRB 1962) that pumping and failure of concrete
pavements can occur with dowelled joints even if the base
layer is free draining. In the short-jointed slab design,
higher speed traffic increases the erosion potential along 1270
with the inherently higher slab deflections. In order to
minimise potential for joint performance or support
erosion issues with higher volume traffic designs, efficient
doweling techniques or FRC could be employed, a
drainage system must be installed, the granular base 1275
should have a minimum CBR, e.g. 80, and geotextile
separation must be placed at the subgrade – base interface.
Furthermore, research suggests that granular bases with
non-plastic fines as well as specifying compacted densities
based on the modified proctor test will greatly improve 1280
the shear strength, reduce the permanent deformation
potential and lower the anisotropic behaviour of the
aggregate base layer (Tutumluer et al. 2009).
1285
12. Conclusions
A new concrete pavement thickness design concept based
on optimising the slab dimensions was assessed by APT of
several full-scale test sections. Three 40 m test sections
were constructed and loaded with an APT device to 1290
determine the concrete slab fatigue cracking and joint
performance. The main factors addressed in the test
sections were slab thickness (9 –10, 15 and 20 cm), base
stiffness (granular vs. asphalt concrete base) and concrete
material type (plain vs. FRC). All slabs had the same 1295
dimensions of 1.8 m by 1.8 m.
APT was completed on all sections until significant
cracking distresses and crack deterioration were present.
The most prevalent distress on all the sections was corner
cracking (61%) followed by longitudinal cracks (33%) and 1300
only a few transverse cracks (6%). In most cases,
significant overloads were required to fail the concrete
sections. The approximate ESALs applied to each section
were calculated based on lateral wander magnification
based on a cumulative fatigue damage analysis. The 1305
results of the APT showed that the 20 cm concrete section
over a granular base sustained the greatest number of
ESALs (average of 35 million) without showing any
distress. In fact, this section sustained almost 7400 passes
of a 16 t wheel load without a single slab failure. The 1310
15 cm slab on an asphalt base sustained over 20 million
ESALs before any slab cracking was observed. The 15 cm
concrete slab over the granular base resisted 11 million
ESALs on average before exhibiting primarily corner
cracking distress. The 10 cm concrete sections over asphalt 1315
concrete withstood almost 4 million ESALs on average
before fatigue cracking began developing on the section.
Finally, the 9 cm concrete slabs on aggregate base began
developing cracks after 75,000 ESALs when the soil was
in poor condition. The repeated load testing on the 9 cm 1320
GPAV 575134—19/4/2011—RAJA.S—390217——Style 4
International Journal of Pavement Engineering
slabs clearly demonstrated that FRC extended the fatigue
cracking life of plain concrete and reduced the rate of
crack deterioration.
The support conditions affected the cracking perform-
1325 ance especially for the thinner sections. The 9 cm concrete
slab on 15 cm aggregate base was tested for over 229,000
ESALs without any cracking when the base/subgrade was
frozen. In the spring time testing, this same section began
showing signs of fatigue cracking after 75,000 ESALs.
1330 The effect of support conditions on the allowable
repetitions to fatigue cracking could be further seen as
the 10 and 15 cm concrete slab on an asphalt concrete base
could take approximately 50 and 2 times more ESALs than
the concrete slabs on granular base, respectively.
1335 The APT demonstrated that the aggregate interlock
joints can still provide medium-to-high deflection LTE
after a significant amount of ESALs. The addition of fibres
on the 9 cm slab section showed consistently high LTE
across the transverse and longitudinal joints. The climate,
1340 especially the amount of rainfall, can significantly affect
the performance of slabs with optimised geometry if
precautions are not taken. A base layer containing a lower
percentage of non-plastic fines and high shear strength is
essential for achieving the desired service life. A non-
1345 woven geotextile is also a necessity to prevent mixing of
the subgrade and aggregate base layer. Finally, adequate
lateral drainage is required to avoid lowering the support
stiffness and unbound material shear strength that could
lead to premature failure.
1350
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge TCPavements Ltd. for
their financial support of this research. TCPavements is patented
1355
technology in Chile (44820-2009), the USA (757,1581) and
international application PCT/EP2006/064732. The contents of
this report reflect the view of the authors, who are responsible for
the facts and accuracy of the data presented herein.
1360
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