An investigation on vertical displacement formations with respect to the types of joints in concrete road applications and cost analysis: An example from trabzon-rize

Abstract

The use of concrete road in Turkey is rising with each passing day. Especially in the Eastern Black Sea Region, there are over 10,000 km of concrete roads. In this study, widely used pavement thickness and concrete compressive strength are determined by examining the concrete road applications in Trabzon and Rize Provinces. A sample pavement model is prepared in Accelerated Pavement Facility at Karadeniz Technical University and the vertical displacement changes of concrete pavement were examined under the real traffic assignments. Benefit and cost analysis are performed by using different types of joints (mesh reinforced half-joint, half-joint without reinforcement, filled full-joint and open full-joint. According to the acquired data, the use of half-joint and reinforced pavement provides 1.3 times less vertical displacement than the half-joint without reinforcement, approximately 4 times less vertical displacement than the filled full-joint, and approximately 9 times less vertical displacement than the open full-joint. Additionally, according to the cost analysis, the presence of reinforcement mesh in the pavement brings a price difference of 38,002.76 Turkish Lira (11.6%) per km to the cost of the concrete pavement. In the light of these, it is concluded that the cost of using half-joints and mesh reinforcement in concrete pavements is quite low compared to its benefit in pavements joints. Furthermore, it is detected that covering the joints with bitumen based filler and rubber sheets with an additional cost of 7% for the existing full-joint concrete roads can reduce the vertical displacement values at least by half, and thus pavement life can be extended. © 2020, TUBITAK. All rights reserved.