National Concrete Pavement Technology Center

Project description

The use of the term “preservation” for concrete pavements is somewhat of a misnomer in that many preservation treatments are actually stop-gap measures used to address visible signs of deterioration in the existing pavement. The treatments address the symptoms of the problem but may not directly address the underlying causes of the distress, which can progress until requiring even more significant rehabilitation, or perhaps even reconstruction. This report redefines the term concrete pavement preservation as “preserving the existing concrete pavement structure to extend its service life for as long as possible, by arresting, greatly diminishing, or avoiding the pavement deterioration process.” This can be achieved through three fundamental approaches: (a) designing and constructing pavements that remain structurally adequate and relatively distress-free throughout their service lives (i.e., using long-life concrete pavement), (b) using asphalt or concrete overlays as preservation treatments to maintain the functional performance of the pavement, and (c) maintaining the serviceability of the pavement using concrete pavement restoration (CPR) treatments. This report reviews the primary factors affecting concrete pavement performance and strategies for concrete pavement preservation. A state-of-the-practice review on the approaches for evaluating the condition of concrete pavements that will help in developing long-term concrete pavement preservation strategies and the engineering economic analysis techniques that can be employed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of various preservation strategies is also included.