International Journal of Pavement Engineering

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Pervious concrete as an alternative pavement

strategy: a state-of-the-art review

Barnali Debnath & Partha Pratim Sarkar

To cite this article: Barnali Debnath & Partha Pratim Sarkar (2018): Pervious concrete as
an alternative pavement strategy: a state-of-the-art review, International Journal of Pavement
Engineering

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2018.1554217

Published online: 20 Dec 2018.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PAVEMENT ENGINEERING
https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2018.1554217

Pervious concrete as an alternative pavement strategy: a state-of-the-art review

Barnali Debnath and Partha Pratim Sarkar
Civil engineering department, National Institute of Technology, Agartala, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

To cater the demand as an alternative pavement material, pervious concrete exhibits an astonishing Received 26 March 2018
significance in the field of eco-friendly pavement design system, due to its overall hydrological and Accepted 26 November 2018
environmental beneficial aspects. The objective of this review paper is to recapitulate the extensive
KEYWORDS
state-of-the-art related to the findings and application of pervious concrete pavement to highlight the Pervious concrete; pore
current trends in research. In this paper, the design and specifications of pervious concrete, its structure; porosity; clogging
mechanical strength and durability, pore features and clogging behaviour and in-situ applications are
reviewed along with the precise maintenance facets. The hydrological benefits, water quality control
and other environmental facts are also reviewed. There are some research gaps regarding the mix
design, low strength behaviour and pore features that offer a scope for future research, so as to
develop a high strength pavement alternative for the development of green infrastructure.

1. Introduction
The continuous growth of population and urbanisation has
been leading to high development of infrastructure and road
networks and subsequently leading to progressive soil water
proofing due to the construction of impermeable pavements
(Nguyen et al. 2014). This impervious nature of conventional
pavements results in downstream flooding, unwarranted flash
floods and bank erosion, thereby causing structural deterio-
ration and reducing the efficacy of pavements (Scholz and Gra-
bowiecki 2007, Joshaghani et al. 2015). Various pollutants, such
as sediments, nutrients and heavy metals are carried by the
runoff resulting from impervious surface areas that directly
get mixed with the surface water (Bean et al. 2007). Therefore,
large detention basins and purification plants need to be
designed before discharging the storm runoff from imperme-
able pavement layers. For overcoming these drawbacks, per-
vious pavement system (PPS) has earned a substantial
attention as one of the best solutions for decreasing the
runoff by allowing the water to drain into the inland surface
(Haselbach et al. 2006). Due to its open pore structures, per-
meable pavements allow stormwater to either infiltrate into
an underground storage basin or ex-filtrate to the soil and ulti-
mately recharge the groundwater and also potentially remove
pollutants and thus these types of pavements are increasingly
being used as an eco-friendly material for pavements in
urban areas (Obla 2007, Chen et al. 2013, Wu et al. 2016, Chan-
drappa and Biligiri 2016a).
The first experimental pervious concrete pavement was suc-
cessfully built in England in the 1960s (Maynard 1970, Monahan
1981). In recent years, various large-scale applications are wit-
nessed in many countries around the world, as for example, in
England and in the USA, pervious pavements have been used
for more than 30 years and most of the research on this subject
have been carried out in the USA and Japan (Yang and Jiang
2003, Mo et al. 2007, Chindaprasirt et al. 2008). The general prin-
ciple of pervious pavement is simply to collect, treat and infiltrate
freely any surface runoff to support groundwater recharge (Scholz
and Grabowiecki 2007). Thus permeable pavement plays a sub-
stantial role in stormwater management and from a pavement
engineer’s viewpoint; reduced amount of runoff may improve
the level of road safety. Adequate water infiltration through a por-
ous medium can also replace ineffective and inefficient sewer
facilities and change the ‘end-of-pipe’ treatment leading to a
green approach in stormwater management (Joshaghani et al.
2015). Pervious concrete has other numerous benefits such as
noise reduction, heat minimisation, protecting native ecosystems,
groundwater recharging, protecting tree growth, etc. Acting as a
heat storing media, the impervious surface releases the heat at
night time initiating the Urban Heat Islands (UHI) and increases
the temperature of the surrounding ambience whereas pervious
pavement allows to lower the surface temperature and shows a
significant heat storage capacity leading to the curtailment of
heat island effect (EPA 2005, Santamouris 2013). The tortuous
interconnected pores of pervious concrete can also absorb the
acoustic energy, acting as a viable noise barrier. Moreover, some
photo-catalyst agent may also be incorporated into cement matrix
to increase the photo-catalytic capacity in order to absorb NOX
and other volatile organic compounds for overall improvement
of urban air quality (Shen et al. 2012). These scores of multi-func-
tional welfares have extremely boosted the use of pervious con-
crete in different countries and its eco-friendly aspects aid in
qualifying for LEED (Leadership Energy and Environmental
Design) credits. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
has also identified it as the Best Management Practice (BMP)
for stormwater Management (Tennis et al. 2004, ACI 522R
2010, EPA 2010, Ibrahim et al. 2014, Zhong et al. 2016).

CONTACT Barnali Debnath brnali540@gmail.com

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2018.1554217
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 B. DEBNATH AND P. P. SARKAR
Apart from its numerous beneficial effects, pervious con-
crete possesses little limitations in all-over applications. Due
to its lower strength and structural capacity, the use of pervious
concrete is limited mostly to parking facilities, low volume
roads, sidewalks, etc. For heavy volume roads and highly devel-
oped expressways, pervious concrete may not conform to the
required structural capacity. The other major drawback related
to pervious concrete is its clogging behaviour that may ulti-
mately reduce the hydraulic conductivity and infiltration
rates. However, various research are going on to address
these drawbacks and to increase its structural capability. Differ-
ent literature related to this pervious concrete mix are reflecting
different aspects of pervious pavements including its types,
structural design procedure, materials used, pore properties,
hydraulic conductivity, heat and noise reduction, clogging
behaviour and other hydrological and environmental benefits.
A study carried out in the ‘RMC Research & Education Foun-
dation’ have assembled different studies related to the appli-
cation, construction, maintenance and structural,
hydrological and environmental design of pervious pavement
(Brown 2006). The main objective of this paper is to compile
all the studies from the past and current research that may
help the other researchers, engineers, scientists or planners to
have a complete thorough knowledge of pervious concrete
and to be inspired by its eminence as a new pavement strategy.
This overall review may assist the researchers to easily identify
its beneficial effects and the shortcomings so that future inves-
tigations may be carried out to diminish its drawbacks and aid
in the implementation of pervious pavements as an eco-
friendly, hydrologically sustainable pavement system.
2. Overview of pervious pavement: types, materials
and design
Pervious pavement looks almost similar to conventional pave-
ment but it is relatively porous in nature, i.e. this pavement is
having intentionally incorporated voids in it. Hence, its design
is somewhat different from traditional pavements and
Figure 1. Different types of permeable pavement system.
consequently, the physical properties significantly differ from
normal pavements. Ferguson (2005) divided the pervious pave-
ment system (PPS) into two main categories as monolithic
pavement and modular pavement. Monolithic structure
involves bounded pavement such as porous concrete and por-
ous asphalt. The modular structures include different pavers
such as porous aggregate, porous turf, plastic geo-cells, open-
jointed paving blocks, concrete grids pavers, soft paving
materials and decks. The Figure 1 is showing different pervious
pavement types. In this study, the focus is mainly drawn to the
previous studies related to pervious concrete pavement.
Pervious concrete consists of gap-graded coarse aggregate
(omitting the fine aggregates and filler materials) bonded by
cement paste and sometimes, chemical admixture or sup-
plementary cementitious material (SCM). As pervious concrete
contains little or no fine aggregates, it is sometimes referred to
as ‘no-fines’ concrete or an agglomerated mass of cement paste
coated aggregates. The lack of fine aggregates results in open
voids that allows high amount of water infiltration and air
exchange rates through these interconnected macro voids
(Meininger 1988, Ghafoori and Dutta 1995, Haselbach 2010,
Lian and Zhuge 2010). But the cement paste thickness in per-
vious concrete forms a very thin layer to bind the aggregates
together and hence permeable concrete shows a tendency to
produce a poor binder interface between the aggregates
which results in the low compressive strength quality that
makes the pavement more vulnerable to cracking, ravelling
and spalling under repetitive stresses (Chindaprasirt et al.
2008, Dong et al. 2013, Wu et al. 2016). For increasing the
strength criterion, increased cement paste thickness, admixture
or other supplementary materials are frequently being incor-
porated in porous concrete leaving a substantial amount of
voids for water percolation. The literature demonstrates that
the void content of the pervious pavements ranges from 11%
to 35% and the porosity lie in the ranges of 15–25% and the
National Ready mix Concrete Association (NRMCA) rec-
ommends a minimum value of porosity as 15% (Tennis et al.
2004, NRMCA 2007). Primarily, compaction energy and

amount of fines have a great effect in sustaining these voids.
Types and size of aggregates, cementing materials and mix pro-
portion including water-cement ratio and aggregate to cement
ratio also play an important role in maintaining the strength,
porosity and void ranges in porous concrete. In the following
sections, the materials required, mix proportion adopted and
the mechanical properties are discussed.
3. Selection of materials
3.1. Aggregate – it’s type and gradation
The major aspect that creates a difference between normal
pavement and pervious pavement is the size, gradation and
quantity of aggregates. The main requirement of pervious con-
crete is to have substantial voids in order to permeate water
through its pores and for having a sufficient vacuum pore,
American Concrete Association has used large size aggregates
ranging from 19 to 9.5 mm (ACI 522 2010). Nevertheless,
some investigators have used smaller aggregates of sizes 9.5–
2.36 mm in order to increase the strength of concrete (Kevern
et al. 2009a, Deo et al. 2010, Huang et al. 2010, Nguyen et al.
2014). But, the use of very fine aggregate is strictly prohibited
as the fine aggregates occupy the void areas, thereby reduces
the infiltration rate. However, according to Crouch et al.
(2007), smaller aggregate will result in higher compressive
strength than the larger size aggregates with a similar porosity
distribution and the study suggested to use uniformly graded
aggregate for beneficial field installation. Another research car-
ried out at the Iowa State University indicates that single size
aggregates provide higher permeability rate, but with a low
pavement strength (Kevern et al. 2010).
Apart from aggregate size, aggregate types, their shapes and
distributions also have a great influence in mechanical strength,
permeability characteristics and the long-term durability of the
pervious concrete pavement (Kevern et al. 2009a, Cosic et al.
2015). The irregularity in aggregate shape influences the
arrangement of the particles or the mode of packing, conse-
quently controlling the void content of the mixture (Hardiman
2004). It has been observed that rounded aggregate requires less
compaction effort than angular aggregate, and can produce
Table 1. Effect of aggregate type and size in strength properties of concrete.
Year Author Aggregate type
2013 Maguesvari and Narashima Crushed gravel
2010 Lian and Zhuge Quartzite
Dolomite
Limestone
2011 Jain and Chouhan Flaky, angular & irregular
2007 Crouch et al. Limestone
2014 Ibrahim et al. Limestone
2015 Joshaghani et al. Crushed gravel
2017 Zhang et al. Recycled Aggregate
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PAVEMENT ENGINEERING 3
high strength pervious concrete, i.e. aggregate with a higher
angularity number reduces the strength (Jain and Chouhan
2011, Maguesvari and Narasimha 2013). For porosity distri-
bution, Cosic et al. (2015) reported that the aggregate type
was the most influencing factor than the aggregate sizes. The
aggregates used in pervious concrete are generally granite,
dolomite, limestone, quartzite etc. The physical characteristics
of coarse aggregates need to be similar to those used for tra-
ditional pavements and this should conform with the standard
specification codes provided in the American standard manual
ASTM C33 (2013) and ASTM C448 (2012b). Effect of aggregate
size and type on permeability and strength of concrete is
expressed in Table 1.
3.2. Binding materials
The binding material that is generally used for pervious concrete
is Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) confirming the properties
prescribed in ASTM C150 (2017). OPC provides sufficient
paste thickness for coating and binding the aggregates together
that increases the strength and durability criterion. The cement
paste thickness is further dependent upon the size of aggregates;
smaller aggregates offer lesser paste thickness due to their larger
surface area whereas, larger sized aggregates show higher paste
thickness. The cement paste thickness also has a great impact
on pore properties of the structure for attributing the required
porosity level. The size of pore structures and cement paste
thicknesses can be identified by using the scanning electron
microscope, CT scanning or X-ray tomography (Kayhanian
et al. 2012, Torres et al. 2015). Along with Portland cement,
other supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) such as fly
ash, silica fume or other pozzolanic materials are also regularly
being incorporated in pervious concrete in an attempt to
increase the overall strength criterion. Although, it has been
seen that the changes in strength by using supplementary
materials in pervious concrete are completely different from
that of the conventional concrete. Supplementary materials
may increase the strength of pervious pavement, but simul-
taneously it leads to the reduction of permeability rates. Table
2 represents the effect of different supplementary cementitious
materials (SCMs) on porous concrete used by previous
Aggregate
size (mm) Major conclusions
4.75–19.5 Reduction in angularity number increases the strength of concrete as well as
reduces the total void.
4.75–9.5 Dolomite aggregate is preferred as the best for pervious concrete. Inclusion of
silica fume may not improve strength but silica fume with Superplasticizer
shows outstanding increase in strength.
6.3–12.5 Increase in the angularity number of aggregates reduces the strength of
pervious concrete.
9.5–19 Increased aggregate size resulted in increasing the total voids and elastic
modulus of pervious concrete.
4.5–12.5 The maximum Compressive strength (6.95 MPa) is obtained with a single sized
aggregate of size 9.5 mm and w/c ratio of 0.35 ensuring a porosity of 30%.
4.75–19 Aggregate size 4.75–9.5 mm with highest cement paste content (28%) offers
maximum comp. strength (10.4 MPa) with porosity 18.6%. Paste content is
found to be the most influential control factors in comp. strength while in
tensile and flexural strength, aggregate size is the governing factor.
2.36–16 Compressive strength decreases by 30% when crushing index of aggregate is
more than 24%.
4 B. DEBNATH AND P. P. SARKAR

Table 2. Studies on the uses of different admixture and supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) in pervious concrete.
Year Author Admixture/SCMs Major conclusions
2003 Yang and Silica fume Use of both supplementary materials with the cementitious binder has effectively improved the strength of pervious
Jiang Superplasticizer concrete.
2010 Huang et al. Polymer latex The use of single fibre was not so effective, though the combination of latex, fibre and natural sand had showed
Polypropylene fibre improved strength and drainage properties.
2010 Lian and Silica fume Inclusion of silica fume could not improve strength but silica fume with Superplasticizer showed outstanding increase
Zhuge Superplasticizer in strength.
2011 Shu et al. Polymer latex The use of latex exhibited higher strength but with reduced freeze-thaw durability, however, freeze-thaw damage
Polypropylene fibre can significantly be improved by using air entraining agents.
Air entraining agent
2012 Aoki et al. Fly Ash The compressive strength of pervious concrete was reduced due to the replacement of cement by addition of fly ash
by more than 50%.
2013 Chen et al. Fly ash (class c) High strength pervious concrete can be achieved by using silica fume together with Superplasticizer.
Silica fume
Superplasticizer
2014 Hesami et al. Rice Husk The fibres in pervious concrete have greatly increased the tensile and flexural strength. The lower dosage of rice husk
Steel fibre reduced the permeability but at 12% rice husk content, the porosity found to be the maximum.
Glass fibre and
PPS fibre
2014 Kevern et al. Polypropylene fibre Macro-synthetic fibres improved both the abrasion resistance and freeze-thaw durability of the pervious concrete.
2014 Gesoglu et al. Waste Rubber Utilization of waste crumb rubber in porous concrete had significantly increased the abrasion and freeze-thaw
resistance.
2016 Wu et al. Ethylene vinyl acetate Use of fibres increases the tensile strength properties and freeze-thaw durability with a slight reduction in porosity.
Polypropylene fibre Air entraining agent can increase the mixture uniformity and compactibility.
Air entraining agent
2016 Bonicelli et al. Polypropylene and Addition of fibre depends on w/c ratio of the mix. Fibre reinforced mix with w/c 0.3 and 0.35 have achieved the
Polyethylene fibre highest tensile strength ratio.

researchers. Lian and Zhuge (2010) reported that the use of silica
fume without superplasticizer might not be effective in increas-
ing the strength, and the reason described for this phenomenon
was that the inclusion of silica fume would give a rise to the
flocculation of cement paste and thus more flocculated colloids
might intensify the porous nature of the mix, thereby preventing
the strength increment. The long molecules of superplasticizer
could wrap the cement paste causing de-flocculation and
thereby enhancing the strength (Dastol 1994, Allan and
Kukacka 1996). Yang and Jiang (2003) have also reported that
silica fume with superplasticizer can improve the strength of
pervious concrete. Different polymeric agents and monofila-
ment micro fibres are also being added to the cementitious
mix with a view to increase the strength and durability of the
mix (Wu et al. 2016). Micro type fibres are useful in preventing
the plastic shrinkage cracking, and these can improve abrasion
resistance and freeze-thaw durability. Kevern et al. (2014), in a
study, specified the optimum fibre dose for permeability concern
and abrasion resistance as 1.5 and 3.0 kg/m3, respectively, and
the desirable fibre length to be 56 mm.
3.3. Mix proportions
The mix proportioning for pervious concrete should be based
on a salient balance between voids, paste content, strength
and workability. Pervious concrete (PC) is generally having
zero slumps with a water-cement ratio in the range of 0.25–
0.40. Water-cement ratio (w/c) and aggregate-binder ratio (a/
b) are the two important parameters that affect the mechanical
and hydrological properties of pervious concrete. The low w/c
ratios can cause insufficient cohesion and consistency, thus
reducing the bonds between the particles, which cause low
workability. On the contrast, high w/c ratios may lead to the
over-workable pervious mix with excessive paste volume than
actually needed, thus cause segregation. Freshly mixed pervious
concrete should be plastic and capable of being shaped like
modelling clay when squeezed by hand (Kevern et al. 2009a).
Aggregate-binder ratio (a/b) is also having the similar effect
as w/c on the properties of permeable mix, the high a/b ratio
possesses weak contact between particles and thereby offers
low strength, whereas low a/b ratio causes strong contact
between particles, thick paste layer around aggregates, however,
these can also occupy the hydraulic channels and void spaces,
leading to the reduction of hydraulic conductivity (Tong
2011). The aggregate to binder ratio is generally kept between
4:1 and 6:1. As pervious concrete is supposed to have zero
slumps, many researchers have used water reducing admixtures
to maintain the workability without increasing the amount of
water. The use of various types of admixtures is also suggested
in the report ACI 522R (2010). Some of these include water-
reducing admixtures (WRA), retarders, hydration stabilizing
admixtures (HSA), viscosity modifying admixtures (VMA)
and internal curing admixtures (ICA). The use of retarding
admixture may also help during field installation of pervious
concrete by reducing the hardening time and maintaining the
required workability during laying. The use of air-entraining
admixture may help in increasing the freeze and thaw dura-
bility (Wu et al. 2016). Different literature have suggested
different mix design and mix proportions for optimum design
of pervious concrete. The most common principle used for mix
design is to provide enough cement paste for coating the aggre-
gate considering the required porosity level. The porosity of
pervious concrete mainly depends upon the volume of voids,
the total amount of cement paste and the paste thickness
around the aggregates. Mix proportioning developed by
Yahia and Kabagire (2014) was based on the ratio of paste
volume to the inter particle voids. Another proportioning
method was proposed by Nguyen et al. (2014) and four differ-
ent hypotheses were projected based on the aggregate shape
and excess paste theory. The unit weight of pervious concrete
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PAVEMENT ENGINEERING 5

Table 3. Properties of pervious concrete extracted from various literatures.

Aggregate Density Permeability Compressive Flexural
Year Author size (mm) Porosity (%) W/C ratio (kg/m3) (cm/s) strength (MPa) strength (MPa)
2004 Tennis et al. 2.36–19.0 15–25 0.27–0.34 1600–2000 0.2–0.53 5.51–20.68 1.03–3.79
2006 Schaefer et al. 4.75–12.5 11.2–33.6 0.22–0.29 1575–2210 0.008–1.49 5.4–27.76 1.38–2.95
2007 Wang et al. 4.75–12.5 17–32 0.22–0.27 1665–2098 0.1–0.5 12.21–25.24 1.41–2.9
2010 Lian and Zhuge 4.75–9.5 7.5–16.6 0.28–0.36 1926–2248 0.398–1.264 11.8–19.0 1.5–3.0
2010 Kevern et al. 0.15–19 15.1–30 0.27 – 0.06–1.04 11–25.8 1.45–3.0
2013 Chen et al. 4.75–9.5 15–25 0.28–0.34 – – 32.1–46.7 4.2–7.4
2014 Kevern et al. 2.63–9.5 23.1–27.2 – 1840–1870 0.31–1.19 15.6–19.7 1.7–2.5
2014 Ibrahim et al. 4.75–12.5 30–42 0.3–0.4 1638–1875 1.63–2.82 1.06–6.95 0.5–2.2
2014 Nguyen et al. 4–6.3 17.2–19.2 0.37 2025 0.11 28.6 4
2015 Torres et al. 6.35–9.5 17.98–31.34 0.33 – 0.42–1.69 3.2–18.6 1.09–3.09
2015 Joshaghani et al. 4.75–19 13.5–33.1 0.25–0.3 1723–1901 0.8–1.63 5.5–9.4 1.6–2.1
2016 Wu et al. 4.75–12.5 15–24.5 0.25 – – 7.5–19 1.1–1.9

is about 70% of the traditional pavements, and the density of
aggregate is in the range of 1400–1800 kg/m3. The volume of
aggregate used in pervious concrete (about 50–60%) is also
lower than the conventional pavements (about 60–75%). The
fresh and hardened unit weight of pervious concrete can be
evaluated using the standard manuals ASTM C1688 (2014)
and ASTM C1754 (2012a). Moisture condition of aggregate
also has a drastic effect on both the workability and stability
of pervious mix. Wet aggregate reduces the paste adhesion,
and cause paste drain-down. And when the aggregate is too
dry, it sucks out the moisture from the paste and reduces the
workability of the mix (Jimma 2014).
Compaction effort or the amount of compaction energy is
also a vital factor in keeping the void content in specified limit.
In laboratory, various types of compaction factor apparatus is
used such as gyratory compactor, kangaroo hammer test and
proctor hammer. Kevern et al. (2009a) have used gyratory com-
pactor to study the compactibility of pervious concrete mixes as
it simulates the actual field compaction condition, and it evalu-
ates the compactibility property of the previous concrete mix.
The gyratory compaction showed that void ratio linearly
decreased with the unit weight of the mix. In another study,
different compaction levels were selected by tamping rod and
proctor hammer and the study concluded that the least com-
pacted mix with lowest cement paste showed the least compres-
sive strength (Torres et al. 2015). However, higher compaction
levels may reduce the porosity and permeability as it causes
the bridging of cement paste between the aggregates. The ACI
committee 522 (2010) had suggested to keep the minimum ver-
tical pressure for compaction as 0.07 MPa.
From the above studies, it is observed that the selection of
mix proportion for pervious concrete is greatly affected by
water-cement ratio, aggregate to binder ratio, the presence of
different admixture or supplementary materials, moisture con-
dition of aggregate, compacting effort, etc. So, the mix pro-
portion needs to be so selected that the effect of all the
variables is minimised. An application of statistical analysis
or mathematical regression may be suitable for the mix design
of the pavement considering different variables (Chandrappa
and Biligiri 2018).
3.4. Strength criterion
A number of studies have already been carried out to analyse the
strength properties of permeable concrete pavements including
split tensile strength, compressive strength, flexural strength and
fatigue behaviour. The strength of pervious concrete is indirectly
governed by the porosity of the mix. The values of porosity and
compressive strength of pervious concrete mix are adopted from
different literatures and plotted in Figure 2 which shows that
there exists a non-linear relationship between porosity and com-
pressive strength of the pervious concrete mix.
Due to high void content, the strength of pervious concrete
pavement is generally much lesser than the conventional pave-
ments. The compressive strength of pervious concrete usually
ranges from 3.4 to 27.5 MPa and tensile strength ranges from
1.0 to 3.4 MPa (Tennis et al. 2004) whereas the conventional
concrete shows the range of compressive and tensile strength
in between 24–34 MPa and 2.4–4.1 MPa respectively (Wang
et al. 2007). However, the strength of pervious concrete can
also be increased by using different supplementary cementi-
tious materials (SCM) and admixtures and the compressive
strength can be increased up to 50 MPa (Yang and Jiang
2003). Using SCMs modification, there is a rapid increase in
compressive strength up to 28 days when compared to the
unmodified pervious concrete, but at the age of 28 days, there
is very little difference in strength between modified and unmo-
dified concrete and after 28 days unmodified pervious concrete
shows higher strength than SCM modified concrete (Chen et al.
2013). Kevern et al. (2005) added a small amount of sand to
increase the strength and durability. The strength functions
are generally dependent upon mix proportions, required poros-
ity, cement paste thickness and aggregate size and shape. Ibra-
him et al. (2014) reported that uniformly graded aggregate of
size 9.5 mm resulted in maximum compressive strength.
Another study has also confirmed that in spite of gap-graded
or open graded aggregate gradation, uniform gradation showed
higher compressive strength along with relatively higher void
ratio (Crouch et al. 2007). As pervious concrete is brittle in
nature, its mechanical behaviour is critically influenced by
the propagation of micro cracks or fracture behaviour and
when subjected to repetitive loading, pervious concrete often
fails due to fatigue cracking. This fracture toughness and fatigue
life can be assessed by using three point loading beam testing.
The properties of pervious concrete extracted from various lit-
eratures are tabulated in Table 3.
Addition to strength criterion, abrasion and ravelling resist-
ance of pervious concrete are also essential concerns as the high
void content, low cement paste and relatively low strength
make the pervious concrete more vulnerable to cracking and
ravelling under moving traffic loads. The ACI 201 has
defined the abrasion resistance as the ability of a surface to
6 B. DEBNATH AND P. P. SARKAR
Figure 2. Relationship between porosity and compressive strength of pervious concrete.
resist from being worn away by rubbing action and frictional
action. The standard test for ravelling resistance is surface
abrasion test specified in the ASTM C944 (2012c) using a rotat-
ing cutter method. In various literatures, different abrasion test
methods were adopted including Cantabro test, loaded wheel
abrasion test and surface abrasion test (Kevern et al. 2009b,
Wu et al. 2011, Gesoglu et al. 2014). Adopting the concepts
from asphalt concrete, Wu et al. (2011) used a loaded wheel
testing apparatus named Asphalt Pavement Analyzer (APA)
and a revolving drum shaped apparatus named Los angles
abrasion machine (Cantabro test) for assessing the abrasion
resistance of pervious concrete. Dong et al. (2013) carried out
a comparative study of the test methods for abrasion resistance
and concluded that the loaded wheel test had the best sensi-
tivity and repeatability compared to Cantabro test and surface
abrasion test. The Cantabro test gave higher weight loss and
was not so effective in calculating the abrasion resistance of per-
vious concrete.
3.5. Durability and freeze-thaw studies
Due to the presence of high amount of voids, pervious concrete
may store water in its macro pores which may make it more
susceptible to freeze and thaw damage, especially under cold
climate. Since there is no standard test method for quantifying
the freeze and thaw durability of pervious concrete, research
have been carried out using general testing methods used for
conventional pavement according to ASTM C666 (2015). But
having a much smaller cement paste thickness adjoining the
aggregates, pervious concrete is becoming saturated quickly
leading to a premature deterioration showing extreme freeze-
thaw damage. So, an appropriate standard code of practice
and acceptable freeze-thaw limits need to be organised for per-
vious concrete, rather than using the codes of traditional con-
crete pavement (Kevern et al. 2010). Previous research on
freeze and thaw studies indicate that pervious concrete pos-
sesses less resistance to freeze-thaw damage as compared to
conventional concrete, but this can be enhanced by using var-
ious additives or supplementary materials, for example, the
inclusion of air entraining admixture, latex, fibres or silica
fume with superplasticizer can improve the freeze-thaw dura-
bility of pervious concrete (Ghafoori and Dutta 1995, Wu
et al. 2016). Gesoglu et al. (2014) had used the waste rubber
and obtained an increased abrasion and freeze and thaw resist-
ance of pervious concrete even after 300 freeze-thaw cycles. The
freeze-thaw deterioration of pervious concrete is directly
related to aggregate type and level of compaction. In another
study, Kevern et al. (2010) showed that aggregate absorption
possessed the greatest effect in freeze-thaw durability and
suggested some requirements for highly durable pervious con-
crete mix as the aggregate should have a specific gravity greater
than 2.5, absorption less than 2.5%, abrasion loss less than 15%
and aggregate gradation should be consisted of smaller aggre-
gate sizes.
4. Pore structure properties and mixture
functionality
The pore structure of pervious concrete has a great effect in
maintaining the required porosity of this composite material
and significantly influences the mechanical and transport prop-
erties or the hydrological nature, thus plays a vital role during
the mix designing process for attaining a sustainable pervious
pavement system. The pore property is mainly ascribed to
the correlation of total pores and permeability. However,
most of the studies have shown a poor correlation between por-
osity and total pore (Cooley et al. 2002, Hainin et al. 2003, Mal-
lick et al. 2003). Fundamentally, porosity is governed by the
consisted parts of total pore or total void viz. permeable pore,
effective pore, dead-end pore, isolated pore and impermeable
pore and among them, permeability or porosity mainly
depends upon the permeable pore and the effective pore struc-
tures that permit water to percolate through them. Isolated and
impermeable voids restrict the water percolation whereas dead-
end pore allows water to enter into the pore, but does not allow
to go out, i.e. it confines the water within it (Tarefder and
Ahmad 2015). Pore feature in terms of hydrological behaviour
may be categorised into two main attributes as (i) non transport

pore property which is mainly governed by inactive porosity
and (ii) transport related property that includes pore connec-
tivity, tortuosity and effective porosity distribution (Sumana-
sooriya and Neithalath 2011).
In general, porosity is defined as the ratio of void to the total
volume of the specimen which is further divided as ‘effective
porosity’ and ‘inactive porosity’. Montes et al. (2005) first
pointed out that all the voids or porous spaces in concrete
were not effective in holding and transporting fluid flow and
termed these as inactive void (also called isolated void or
impermeable void). Effective porosity indicates those voids
(effective and permeable voids) that are able to transmit fluid
and help in water percolation through porous medium. These
observations provide a remarkable conclusion that a higher
porosity level does not ensure higher permeability rate for
any material, rather it depends on the distribution of pores.
Wimberly et al. (2001) stated the effective porosity as the frac-
tion of total porosity that was allowed to drain within 30 min-
utes and attributed this as ‘rapid flow porosity’, as the fluid
would quickly flow from the porous medium.
The pore feature analysis can be accomplished in two ways –
either evaluating the pore gap and void size or by assessing the
porosity and permeability rates through these pores. Determi-
nation of these random pore structure features and the size
of voids in the composite porous specimen are well perceived
by using 2D or 3D scan imaging technology, CT scanning or
X-ray tomography (XRT). In scan imaging technology, the per-
vious concrete specimens are scanned using a flatbed scanner,
mostly in the grayscale mode having a resolution of around
300 dpi and then the images are processed and threshold to
remove the noise and to separate the voids and solids. The pro-
cessed images provide the area fraction of pores, critical pore
size, specific surface area (SSA) and mean free spacing of
pores (Deo and Neithalath 2010, Sumanasooriya and Neitha-
lath 2011). The later one, i.e. porosity and permeability evalu-
ation can be done through the laboratory tests volumetric
analyses. Effective Porosity can be assessed by using the follow-
ing methods (Martin and Putman 2016).
(a) Corelok method: Corelok method is outlined in ASTM
D7063 using the Corelok® vacuum sealer where porosity
or amount of void can be calculated by evaluating the
bulk and apparent specific gravity.
(b) Montes et al. method: This method is especially originated
by Montes et al. (2005) to quantify the porosity of a porous
system which is based on the basic theory of porosity. The
method of water displacement (Archimedes principle) is
adopted in this study considering the dry weight and sub-
merged weight of the sample. This method can be used in
measuring the porosity of the cored field samples.
(c) Vacuum method: It is similar to the previous method with
one exception that a vacuum is used here to remove the
entrapped air in the specimen.
The measurement of permeability in porous pavement is
generally carried out using the constant head permeability
and falling head permeability test setup. The concept for both
the test technique and the evolution of test results from the
equations provided are completely based on the theory of
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PAVEMENT ENGINEERING 7
Darcy’s law, and one of the major assumptions taken during
the development of this law is that the flow should be laminar
throughout its motion. However, Menard and Crovetti (2006)
reported that the application of Darcy’s law might be inap-
propriate for measuring the permeability through porous
media as the flow showed turbulent nature. Tan et al. (1997)
also acknowledged that the flow through porous asphalt was
not laminar as the Reynolds number exceeded the limit for
laminar flow and flow changed to turbulent. In order to take
turbulence flow into account during permeability measure-
ment, a new permeability test setup for the porous media has
been developed by the University of Singapore (Fwa et al.
2001). Nevertheless, in spite of having limitation and inaptness
in the application of constant and falling head permeability test
in porous media, its simplicity and low setup cost have
influenced various researchers to practice with it. Although,
falling head permeability test generally shows higher co-
efficient of permeability as compared to constant head permea-
meter (Qin et al. 2015). The American standard manual
(ASTM C1701) and the National Centre for Asphalt Technol-
ogy (NCAT) provided two different field permeability tests
methods for permeable pavement. However, the permeability
obtained using ASTM C1701 was lower than that of the values
obtained as per NCAT test techniques (Li et al. 2013a, 2013b).
Different realistic relationships have been modelled for the
pore feature indices to estimate the co-efficient of permeability
in any pervious media (Flint and Selker 2003). To examine the
pore structure, Kozeny developed a model to predict per-
meability which was further modified by Carman. In an empiri-
cal study, Carman (1956) observed the flow of gas through the
porous media, and using the Kozeny-Carman equation, Cha-
puis and Aubertin (2003) predicted the permeability co-
efficient of soil mass relating the permeability with the total
pore. Later on, the equation was modified by Koponen et al.
(1997) by changing the total pore to permeable pore. This
Kozeny-Carman (K-C) model is further modified by Kuang
et al. (2011) employing effective porosity, specific surface area
(SSA) and weighted tortuosity (Le/L)w. For quantifiable predic-
tion of permeability through the porous rock medium, Katz
and Thompson (1986) had formulated an equation assuming
a cylindrical nature of pore geometry. But for larger and irregu-
lar pores, the Katz-Thompson (K-T) equation was not best
fitted and overestimated the permeability through the pores.
This K-T model was then modified by Sumanasooriya and
Neithalath (2011) by applying a correction factor considering
the electrical conductivity of pores and the granulometric criti-
cal pore size. Figure 3 is showing the relation between porosity
and permeability of pervious concrete.
Though porosity and permeability are important par-
ameters, the quantification of tortuosity by Zhong et al.
(2016) clarified that only porosity was insufficient to predict
the hydraulic conductivity; the workability and aggregate size
in the mix also had a strong effect in hydraulic conductivity.
The nominal maximum size of aggregate boosts up in maximis-
ing the pore size and several studies confirmed that larger
aggregate size contributes to higher permeability rates for
both pervious concrete and porous asphalt mix. Hasan et al.
(2013) reported that for aggregate size 25 mm, the co-efficient
of permeability increased by 74.1% as compared to 14 mm
8 B. DEBNATH AND P. P. SARKAR
aggregate size. In another study, Chandrappa and Biligiri
(2016b) have used ultrasonic pulses velocity (UPV) technique
to enumerate the pore feature and reported that water-cement
ratio (W/C) and aggregate to cement ratio greatly affect the per-
meability of the mix.
The amount of cement used and cement paste thickness it
forms around the aggregates have also a great influence in
retaining the effective porosity as well as the other mechanical
properties of pervious concrete. A low void size or high paste
thickness will lead to lesser percolation rate. Torres et al.
(2015) defined the ‘cementitious paste thickness’ as the average
thickness of cementitious paste that surrounds each individual
aggregate in concrete or the maximum length from the edge of
an individual aggregate to the outermost edge of the cement
paste. For assessing the voids, an optimum paste rheology is
critical for pervious concrete in the sense that a too viscous
cement paste can assure a good void content, but results in
poor workability and creates difficulty in mix; whereas, if the
paste is too fluid, it will result in a paste drain down and sealing
of the voids. In a study, Chindaprasirt et al. (2008) determined
the void content by cutting it into different layers and simulated
the paste characteristics through vibration energy. The results
elucidated that low paste thickness offered high voids and rela-
tively low strength whereas high paste thickness contributed a
high compressive strength but offered lesser voids. In another
study, Sumanasooriya and Neithalath (2011) observed that
high paste content afforded lesser porosity and made the con-
crete more prone to clogging.
5. Potential for clogging in pervious pavements
Coughlin et al. (2012) defined the term clogging as a reduction
in hydraulic conductivity that reduces infiltration into the pave-
ment or exfiltration into the subgrade. And the burning con-
cern related to pervious concrete pavements is their clogging
behaviour due to the contaminant of stormwater with dirt
Table 4. Studies on the clogging potential of pervious concrete.
Year Author Major considerations
2010 Deo et al. Pore structure with different aggregate sizes.
2010 Haselbach, Laboratory permeability check using bentonite and kaolinite
M. clay.
2010 Guthrie et al. Effects of clogging and water saturation on resistance of to
freeze-thaw.
2011 Tong, B Clogging recovery for variable porosities, various sediment types
and various rejuvenation techniques.
2011 Schaefer Permeability check for the samples having variable porosities
et al. and clogged with different sediments.
2012 Coughlin Effect of surface cleaning by pressure washing.
et al.
2012 Kayhanian In-situ permeability check on existing parking lots and statistical
et al. analysis on clogging behaviour of porous concrete through
scan imaging.
2013 Hein et al. Clogging recovery using different rehabilitation techniques.
and debris that block the pores of pervious concrete, thereby
leading to the reduction in permeability and infiltration rate.
An in-situ infiltration rate test showed approximately 87%
reduction of permeability after 3 years of construction (Abbott
and Comino-Mateos 2003). This drop in permeability leads to
an increase in susceptibility of inland flooding and freeze–thaw
damage that reduces the service life of pavement (Tan et al.
2003). A pervious concrete may be impractical for public streets
under the load of clogging materials, and a good strategy may
be feasible to minimise the surface clogging by suitable struc-
tural design, proper site locating and protecting the pavement
by means of periodical maintenance (Schwartz 2010). The pre-
vious studies carried out on pavement clogging by various
researchers and the concluding remarks are summarised in
Table 4. Materials that cause clogging mainly include sediments
(containing sand, silt, clay, etc.) eroded from surrounding areas,
debris coming from road surfaces or wreckage deposited by
vehicles, finer particles devising from a pavement itself due to
surface wear, etc. and some sort of organic matters originating
from neighbouring vegetation (Ferguson 2005). It is found in
previous studies that clogging of voids is not dependent upon
the maximum aggregate size and design void in the mixture,
but depends on the distribution and structure of the voids in
the mix (Król et al. 2017). The pore structure features and
porous behaviour have a very substantial role in the pervious
pavements as these pavements are expected to assist as a bi-func-
tional pavement system – structural function and hydrological
function. And the efficacy of hydrological functioning of per-
vious pavements is getting abridged due to continuous clogging.
The clogging in permeable pavement can be addressed as
physical clogging, chemical clogging and biological clogging
(Yong et al. 2013). The process of clogging is time dependent
in nature and this can be attributed as a slow siltation process
which includes cyclic deposition of clogging material and
rapid siltation process which is caused by sudden slump depo-
sition or landslide (Reiser et al. 1989). Xinzhuang et al. (2016)
Significant conclusions
Aggregate size 9.5 mm showed negligible loss in permeability while
4.75 mm had shown maximum particle deposit and lowest permeability
after clogging.
Repeated clogging cycle resulted in reduction of infiltration capacity of the
system.
The samples that were clogged or fully saturated or both, deteriorated at a
faster rate than those that remained unclogged and unsaturated.
Permeability was recovered using pressure washing and vacuum sweeping
by 4.0–9.4% and by 2.4–9.6%, respectively, when clogged with sand and by
9.4–15.0% and by 10.3–12.5%, respectively, when clogged with clayey silt.
Samples with higher initial porosity achieved higher recovery.
Samples having lesser initial porosity exhibited lesser reductions in
permeability. Silty clay and sand caused the highest reductions (93–96%) in
the permeability for all samples.
Clay causes approximately ten times more clogging than sand per mass but
after clogging, infiltration rate was still above the average intensity.
Pressure washing does not improve the infiltration rate
Top 25 mm surface layer showed the least permeability rate due to clogging
and the fine particles less than 38 μ was more prone to cause clogging. Age
factor denotes that older pavement offers lesser porosity than the new
ones.
The vacuuming followed by pressure washing was most effective in refining
infiltration rates. Pressuring washing was more effective than power
blowing, but no improvements achieved by combining the two.

Figure 3. Relationship between permeability and porosity of pervious concrete.
have developed a real time simulation system for clogging and
reported that the clogging process completes in three phases
viz. quick clogging, temporary mitigation of clogging and pro-
gressive clogging. Many research have been conducted on
both pervious concrete and porous asphalt pavements to
accumulate in-situ clogging behaviour and the variability of
hydraulic conductivity with different clogging materials. Per-
meability prediction with sand and very fine sand shows that
clogging relatively reduces the infiltration rate (Haselbach
et al. 2006), but in another study, it has been seen that clay (mon-
tmorillonite) causes approximately ten times more clogging
than sand per mass (Coughlin et al. 2012). Another study was
carried out with bentonite and kaolinite clay under extreme con-
ditions and results obtained after a series of clogging cycles indi-
cated that the surface layer became a nearly impenetrable barrier
(Haselbach 2010). Kevern et al. (2009a) investigated the effect of
clogging on a pervious concrete slab using the clogging materials
as landscaping compost and soil slurry and the result showed
that the mixture of soil slurry and compost was more prone to
clog the slab.
Deo et al. (2010) have developed a probabilistic model
through image analysis for the idealisation of clogging behav-
iour and reported that larger pore size provided the passage
for fluid flow along with clogging materials while smaller
pore sizes inhibited the entry of clogging materials resulting
in a lesser fluid flow. The American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE) and the Water Environment Federation (WEF) (1998)
have hypothesised that monolithic systems are more prone to
clogging compared to that of modular pavements. Adopting
this concept, Yong et al. (2013) have proposed a 4-parameter
black box regression model to calculate the hydraulic resistance
and physical clogging behaviour and assured that permeable
pavers show negligible clogging as compared to porous asphalt.
5.1. Recovery from clogging
To endure the efficacy and long-time serviceability of pavement
for acting as a porous media to ensure adequate infiltration,
periodic and proper maintenance is very essential for pervious
pavements. The most commonly used manual and mechanical
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PAVEMENT ENGINEERING 9
rehabilitation techniques to unclog the pavements are sweeping
with a broom, pressure washing, vacuum cleaning and the
combination of both pressure washing and vacuum sweeping.
Ferguson (2005) conveyed that the infiltration of porous con-
crete specimens exposed to sand sediments could be immedi-
ately restored with pressure washing and brooming.
Haselbach (2010) have also suggested the removal of debris
from the surface by sweeping. The permeability a clogged per-
vious concrete pavement can be restored up to 80–90% in some
cases when the pavement is undergone pressure washing (Tong
2011). The typical pressure applied should be carefully deter-
mined, which is normally approximately 20.7 MPa (3,000 psi)
(Chopra et al. 2010).
In vacuum sweeping the debris are sucked out from the voids
to re-open the clogged pores. However, for most of the cases, the
vacuum sweeping is faster but not as effective as pressuring
washing (Deo and Neithalath 2010, Kuang et al. 2011, Zhang
et al. 2017). The American Concrete Institute reported that
the most effective cleaning scheme is to combine the two tech-
niques: power vacuum after pressure washing (ACI 522R
2010). Chopra et al. (2010) also reported that the combination
of the vacuum sweeping and pressure washing offered the high-
est recovery in permeability, whereas, only pressure washing was
not so effective. However, in a field study carried out by Hender-
son and Tighe (2012), it was seen that the pressure washing and
vacuuming could not efficiently revitalise the clogged pave-
ments; instead, it was helpful to use sweeping with a firm
brush to agitate the debris in surface voids, followed by rinsing
the pavement with a garden hose. Previous reports on clogging
confirmed that the maintenance and rejuvenation were more
easy and effective on the pavements having high porosity values,
but had a trivial outcome on pavements with porosity lesser than
15% (Schaefer et al. 2006, Tong 2011). Consequently, it can be
decided that the retrieval rate is mainly influenced by pore size
distribution, pore connectivity and porosity of the pavement.
6. Field installation of pervious pavements
Laboratory studies on different aspects of pervious concrete
have shown its acceptability as a sustainable pavement system
10 B. DEBNATH AND P. P. SARKAR

and can be fruitfully used for low volume road networks. Before (2011) have used Falling weight deflectometer (FWD) for asses-
proceeding for field installation of any pervious system, the sing the structural load response of the pervious concrete with
general layout and the detailed survey must be carried out in the help of artificial neural networks (ANN) based back calcu-
order to verify the mix design process and layer selection and lation method and have reported that the higher base thickness
preparation. The pavement layer selection process for porous will reduce the overall pavement deflection. The Environmental
concrete is almost similar to conventional rigid pavement but Protection Agency of the United States (EPA 1999) has also
the layer thicknesses and particle size distribution for porous recommended a pavement cross-section for higher base thick-
concrete are different from the conventional one. The com- ness. The American Concrete Association (ACI 522 2010) has
ponents of pervious concrete pavement are discussed below. recommended providing a subbase section below the base layer
for providing vertical support and for acting as a storage basin.
6.1. Permeable concrete surface
During the designing a permeable concrete surface for in-situ 6.3. Compacted soil subgrade
installation, it becomes fundamentally important to allow and
Similar to the conventional pavement, subgrade delivers the
maintain adequate surface infiltration to cater a satisfactory
imperative structural stability to the pervious pavements and
volume of stormwater to be captured and treated by the
hence, preparation of properly compacted subgrade is very
whole facility. An enhanced mix design method, proper selec-
important. The ASTM international has recommended the
tion of materials and optimum compaction method are signifi-
compaction range of the subgrade as 92–95% of the maximum
cant in maintaining the required porosity and voids for suitable
density if the pervious mix is placed directly on sandy or grav-
water percolation. As, pervious concrete is having very low
elly soils (ASTM D1557). As in most of the cases, water is
workability, the placing is quite different from traditional con-
allowed directly into the subgrade for groundwater recharge,
crete. Placement of pervious concrete is always done continu-
care must be taken not to over compact the soil with its swelling
ously, spreading and striking-off immediately, generally with
potential and the soil must be confirmed for liquefaction cri-
the vibrating screeds (Sanford 2014). The common methods
terion. The pervious concrete installation on sandy soil sub-
adopted for placement/compaction of pervious concrete are
grade follows the design philosophy of infiltrating the
riser strip method, roller-screed method or either slip forms
stormwater directly to groundwater through the soil subgrade.
or a revolving steel cylinder that combines strike-off and com-
But, for clayey and silty subgrade, water is not permitted to
paction. Immediately after placement of the pervious concrete,
enter into subgrade. In that case, perforated drain pipes are
plastic is used to cover the pervious concrete to prevent evap-
used just below the base layer for transmitting the water to
oration of water. Further consolidation of the pervious concrete
any recharge tank or infiltration well and proper drainage is
can be completed by using rollers on top of the plastic cover
provided throughout the section (ACI 522 2010). The installa-
(Tong 2011).
tion of an impervious geotextile membrane also helps in pro-
The slope is kept relatively flat in order to prevent runoff
tecting the subgrade layer. The cross section of such kind of
from exiting the pavement structure at a lower point in the
pavements is shown in Figure 4.
pavement. If slopes are greater than 1%, impervious barriers
must be placed in the base material beneath the pavement to
stop the flow of water downhill (Paine 1992). After proper com- 6.4. Geotextile membrane
paction, subgrade soils have much less vertical water trans-
mission rate, and hence a reservoir layer is necessary to Application of geosynthetics or geo-membrane layers has
increase the rate of water percolation into the subgrade earned a great attention in supporting permeable pavement
(FCPA 1990). The thickness of pavement should be decided layers. Installation of geotextiles in pervious concrete may be
considering the subgrade strength and the annual average done in two ways: geotextile installed at the top of subgrade
daily traffic (AADT) count of that particular section where and installed just below the permeable surface. Installation of
the pervious concrete will be installed. Currently, no standard
guidelines are available for designing the pavement thickness;
however, the thickness of pervious concrete made for parking
lots and low volume road are generally kept as 150 and
300 mm, respectively (FHWA 2012).

6.2. Granular base

Coarser aggregate beds are generally used as the base layer,
which act as a bi-functional protecting course – the aggregate
base layer plays a vital role in maintaining the structural integ-
rity and controlling the load response spectra originating from
traffic volume while also act as a storage reservoir basin for
proper subgrade infiltration. For this purpose, the base thick-
ness is generally kept higher than the conventional pavements
so as to obtain a satisfactory reservoir volume. Suleiman et al. Figure 4. Cross section of pervious concrete with perforated drain hole.

pervious upper geotextile may be optional as it does not impart
any strength increment of the pavement system (Maharaj et al.
2012) and some researchers also have recommended not to
provide an upper geotextile layer. However, some studies
have shown that the upper geotextile helped in getting clearer
water and abetted to inhibit sand from migrating into the
base layer (Scholz and Grabowiecki 2007). The main function
of lower geotextile is to protect the subgrade and to help in
soil stabilisation. It may be both pervious or impervious – per-
vious geotextile is used for direct infiltration of water to sub-
grade and impervious geotextile is used where there is no
need for direct infiltration. For porous asphalt pavements, geo-
textile helps in reducing the rutting depth and rate of block
breakage, providing well-defined pavement serviceability. New-
man et al. (2002a) reported that most of the geotextiles can
absorb pollutants and help in retaining petroleum oil. These
geotextile layers endorse the microbial action and aid in pollu-
tant removal efficiency of the pervious concrete.
The field inspection of the performances and structural
integrity of pervious pavements should be checked to justify
the serviceability of the pavement system. Mechanical and
hydrological study of the existing porous pavement can be
done in-situ or either on the cored samples in the laboratory.
The in-situ pavement condition analysis can be completed by
determining pavement indices using FWD, etc. and the cored
samples can be tested for abrasion resistance or freeze-thaw
durability. The hydrological performances can be tested by an
efficient rejuvenation method using single and double ring
infiltrometer.
7. Hydrological benefits
Based on the previous research and field performances, it is evi-
dent that pervious concrete has proved to become as one of the
best management models for effective stormwater management
strategy and has assisted as a leading tactic for ‘green approach’
in runoff management due to the emergence of the sustainable
drainage system (SUDS) (Scholz and Grabowiecki 2007). These
significantly reduce the stormwater runoff volume and decrease
peak flow rates from the urban catchments when compared to
the traditional impervious pavements. Studies indicate that the
installation of pervious pavements can minimise the effective
imperviousness of a street by 42% and runoff volume can be
reduced up to 70–98% (Rankin and Ball 2004, Dreelin et al.
2006, Collins et al. 2008). Due to this high rate of infiltration,
pervious concrete supports groundwater recharge, reduces the
salinity of the water, and improves the water quality and as a
result preparation of large detention basin and laying of bigger
sewer pipes has also become obsolete. The infiltrated water can
be directly passed through subgrade for groundwater recharge
or can be stored in an aquifer and can be used for the agricul-
tural purpose, animal feeding pads or manure storage plants.
8. Environmental benefits
8.1. Water quality control
National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Urban Storm
Water Management in the US has taken an initiative for water
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PAVEMENT ENGINEERING 11
purification and mentioned that the contaminants in storm-
water runoff play a substantial role as the principal contribution
to water quality impairment and considered it as one of the
greatest challenges in water pollution control (NRC 2008). As
stormwater causes non-point source pollution (NPS) where
natural as well as artificial pollutants get contaminated with
natural watercourses, a great ecological disturbance arises
that has impact on natural human life as well as underwater
lives. Moreover, conventional drainage or attenuation tanks
effectively concentrate pollutants which are flushed directly
into the drainage system during rainfall and then into water
bodies. As a solution of this water pollution and contamination,
pervious pavements have shown its good track record in
removing pollutants carried by the stormwater (Torres et al.
2015). Allowing rain water to pass through it, permeable pave-
ment system not only improves groundwater recharge but also
act as a natural filtration device to improve the quality of the
passing water while also mitigating the first flush pollution.
Previous researchers and experts have demonstrated that per-
vious pavement can efficiently remove the pollutants like
hydrocarbons, oil and grease, heavy metals or nitrogen and
phosphorus compounds and have categorised the purification
process into different aspects such as (a) Physical distillation,
where the suspended solids are trapped in the internal pores
of pavement by adsorption process and thus most of the sus-
pended particles get removed. Tennis et al. (2004) presented
that the tests performed in Virginia and Maryland showed
82% and 95% total suspended solids removal for pervious con-
crete, (b) Chemical percolations where pervious pavements
release hydroxide (OH−) and carbonate (CO−2 3 ) ions. When
in contact with water, due to its alkaline nature, many of the
pollutants react with these ions and get precipitated, (c) Bio-
logical filtration where the microbial mass present in the
voids take part in biological action by forming biofilm around
the pollutants and purify the water, acting as a trickling filter.
The BOD and COD removal rate in pervious pavement were
recorded as 50–90% and 87%, respectively (Maharaj et al.
2012). Scanned image of pervious concrete showed the devel-
opment of a complex community of microbial mass and patho-
genic bacteria that could effectively remove 95–99% ammonia-
nitrogen based compounds (Newman et al. 2002b, Scholz and
Grabowiecki 2009).
Several studies have been carried out to assess the pollutant
removal capacity of pervious pavement system. Fassman and
Blackbourne (2010) have shown that the infiltrated water
through pervious pavement had a considerably lower level of
copper and zinc. Dierkes et al. (2005) tested five porous pave-
ments for 18 years of operations and the results indicated that
the removal efficiency for lead, cadmium, copper and zinc
almost ranges between 94% and 99%. In situ performances
and testing of existing pervious pavements have shown that
the pervious pavement is very efficient in removing total sus-
pended solids, phosphorus, oils, diesel fuels and different
metals such as zinc, lead, copper, cadmium etc. Heavy metals
coining from nearby industries easily get mixed with storm-
water can also be removed by pervious pavement. These can
also function as an efficient hydrocarbon trapper and powerful
in-situ bioreactors and can remove almost 99% petroleum
hydrocarbons (Sansalone et al. 2008).
12 B. DEBNATH AND P. P. SARKAR
8.2. Noise reduction
Noise pollution affects more than any other kind of pollution in
the modern industrialised world and the prominent source of
noise pollution is the sound created by road traffic. Currently,
the most commonly adopted remedy for abatement of the
noise generated by the traffic is the installation of sound bar-
riers. Sound barriers obstruct the sound transmission path
between vehicles and the neighbouring sides of the highways,
resulting in noise reduction. But construction of such barriers
leads to a costly design of pavement. Pervious concrete can
achieve a great platform in modern urbanisation as the surface
texture and porous nature can absorb the noise originated from
the road traffic and tire pavement friction, thereby reducing the
sound wave reflection (Kim and Lee 2010). According to Hen-
drickx (1998), pervious concrete might be used a noise absorber
because the void structure in porous concrete allows the air
between the tire and the pavement to escape, thereby producing
a lower frequency road noise. Takao et al. (2001) have also
confirmed that due to the refraction and the occurrence of
interference inside the void texture, the noise energy broadcasts
through the interconnected macro voids of permeable concrete,
and thus get dispelled via conversion to heat. A study was car-
ried out by Tian et al. (2014) for assessing the acoustical
absorption and tire-pavement noise reduction and the study
clearly verified that the pervious cement concrete could sustain-
ably reduce the tire-pavement originated noise by 4–8 dB. Liu
and Cao (2009) have also reported that single layer porous
asphalt pavement significantly helped in reducing the loudness
by 3.3–3.6 dB.
8.3. Global warming control
Pervious concrete is sometimes considered as a pilot-scale
operation for earth energy systems or geo-thermal heat
exchange system in order to reduce ‘Urban Heat Island
(UHI)’ effect. Yanga et al. (2016) have defined UHI as a heat
accumulation phenomenon in urban climate, caused by
urban construction and human being activities. Conventional
paving materials can reach summer time temperatures up to
50–65°C, and these have a solar reflectance of 5–40%, which
means they can absorb 95–60% of the energy reaching to
them, instead of reflecting it into the atmosphere. The system
transfers the absorbed heat to the air above them, especially
during night time, thereby increasing the ambient temperature.
However, pervious concrete pavement shows much lower solar
reflectance compared to the conventional concrete pavements,
thus it can absorb more heat energy. It was found that the solar
reflectance index (SRI) or the ability of solar reflection for per-
vious concrete and normal concrete are about 14 and 37,
respectively (Haselbach et al. 2011). In a study carried out by
Kevern et al. (2012), different temperature sensors were
installed on both the traditional and pervious concrete pave-
ment. The five days recorded data confirmed that the pervious
concrete acted as a heat storing media, showing very less
amount of solar reflectance compared to that of the traditional
one. Because of this high heat absorbance and low thermal iner-
tia, the summer time surface temperature of pervious concrete
is also higher than that of the blacktop asphalt concrete (Asaeda
and Ca 2000, Lynn et al. 2009). But at night time, the pervious
concrete pavement cools much faster than the traditional one
and also helps in reducing ambient temperature (Kevern
et al. 2009b, Kevern et al. 2012). Due to the presence of
pores, the available surface area for pervious concrete is more
than the conventional one which helps it in reducing the heat
reflection and increasing the heat convection (Ferguson
2005). During windy weather, this heat convection method
helps it to stay cooler than the conventional one (Qin and Hiller
2013). Another reason of considering pervious concrete as a
cool pavement is its high water percolation rate. It was found
that the ponded water (depth up to 152 cm) or irrigating
water though pavement helped it to get cool faster than the nor-
mal pavement (Li et al. 2013a, Nemirovsky et al. 2013). How-
ever, the amount of heat that can be reduced by employing
pervious pavement system mainly depends upon its moisture
condition, porosity and void content of the mix (Li et al.
2013a). At high porosity, the pervious concrete possesses
more amounts of void spaces which impede the pavement to
store the heat (Wu et al. 2017). Santamouris (2013) and Qin
(2015) have reviewed different pavement types that were used
as a mitigation approach to UHI. As a cool pavement strategy,
pervious concrete provides a porous greenhouse floor, reducing
the UHI effect and controlling the emission of CO2. Environ-
mental protection agency (EPA) has also specified that pervious
concrete act as a sustainable strategy in reducing the global
warming effect.
9. Conclusion
This paper recapitulates the widespread state-of-the-art
related to the findings and application of pervious concrete
pavement. Pervious concrete, to fight against the current
environmental concerns, takes an imperative integral role in
decorating the sustainable drainage system and has become
the best management practice for stormwater control. The
objective of this study was to accumulate all the previous
researches on the pervious concrete pavement with a view
to deliver a comprehensive knowledge on the development
of pervious concrete to the other researchers and developers
who might get motivated by its eminence as a new pavement
strategy.
It is perceived from the literature that there is a lack of the
proper mix design method for pervious concrete mix and can
be considered as a significant research gap. Most of the
researchers have used different mix proportions considering
different factors which make the studies non-comparable in
order to generalise the design method. So, there is a need of
standard mix design specification and structural thickness
design method to develop a correlation between different
studies considering all the design variables. The compressive
strength and flexural strength for unmodified pervious concrete
mix generally ranges from 1.06–27.7 MPa to 0.5–2.95 MPa,
respectively; however, it has also been seen that the compressive
strength and flexural strength can be increased up to 46.7 MPa
and 7.4 MPa, respectively, when modified with some sup-
plementary materials. Due to this, the selection of materials,
aggregate gradation or the uses of supplementary materials
need to be optimised and should be specified in order to

maximise the durability, functionality and long-time service-
ability of pervious concrete pavement. Several practices and
approaches are condensed in this paper that can be assimilated
to prepare an improved mix design method of enhanced
reliability. The researchers have suggested the application of
pervious concrete pavement only for primary and low volume
road networks due to its poor serviceability under heavy loads.
An improved design mix might also be helpful to extend the
application of pervious concrete in medium/heavy volume
road networks. Moreover, there are very limited researches
available related to the laboratory-field correlation. Therefore,
the adopted design method needs to be correlated with the
field installation method, and the total cost analysis of the pave-
ment also needs to be carried out, which are considered as the
research gaps. There are several ways to identify the pore fea-
ture of pervious concrete and different probabilistic means
can also be applied for the idealisation of the porous nature.
However, there is a privation for an appropriate method to
idealise the porous nature which is also considered as a research
gap. Pervious concrete is intended to act as a sustainable drai-
nage system and several studies are integrated in this paper
showing its infiltration capacity and hydrological benefits.
But, this infiltration capacity can be hampered due to the clog-
ging of pores, and hence a regular maintenance is very much
essential considering the periodic cleaning and unclogging of
porous concrete to endure the efficacy and long-time service-
ability of the pavement. Several techniques for unclogging the
pervious pavement are mentioned in this paper, however,
more research is still required in this issue to obtain an efficient
and economical rejuvenation technique. A number of research
have already been carried out to identify the improvement in
water quality using this pervious concrete and the studies
proved the efficacy of the pervious concrete in removing the
pollutant and suspended materials. However, a correlation
between this pollutant removal capacity and the pore structure
needs to be furnished with a view to obtain better results which
can be an important future prospect. Pervious concrete is also
capable of mitigating the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and noise
effect due to this porous nature. But there are comparatively
fewer literatures available regarding this UHI control and
acoustic resistance of pervious concrete. Studying these pore
features to control the UHI effect and to minimise the noise
can also be a scope for the future research works.
In this paper, the design and specifications of pervious con-
crete, its mechanical strength and durability, in-situ appli-
cations and hydrological and environmental aspects are
outlined along with the precise maintenance facets. The pre-
vious researches reveal some research gaps in this issue that
are considered as the future prospects of this study. If these
gaps can be addressed properly considering its overall appli-
cations, an optimised mix design method can be developed
easily that would assist to implement the pervious concrete to
act as a bi-functional sustainable pavement system and the
application of pervious concrete can also be improved from
low volume to medium/high volume road networks. When
the research gaps are addressed fully, the pervious concrete
may become a globally well-known strategy and possibly the
best pavement alternative to the development of green
infrastructure.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PAVEMENT ENGINEERING 13
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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