Treating cracks in asphalt pavements is a major part of every maintenance engineer's work. The objective of any crack treatment is to minimize the intrusion of water into underlying layers of the pavement structure. Such water infiltrates the base layers of the pavement and may lead to pavement structural failures. Crack treatments fall into two broad categories - crack sealing and crack filling. Crack sealing is generally performed on "working" cracks (e.g., cracks that are more than 1/8" (3 mm) in summer and significantly larger in the winter), although crack sealing can be successfully used for all crack types. Crack filling is generally performed on cracks that do not open and close due to environmental conditions. Much research has been performed on the materials and designs for crack sealing and crack filling for flexible pavements; however, little is known about variability in the current state-of-the-practice regarding construction techniques and the resulting effectiveness of crack sealing and crack filling. This report summarizes the current state-of-the-practice of crack sealing and crack filling. This report is limited to crack treatments of asphalt pavements, and does not consider joint filling on concrete pavements, reflective cracking retardation techniques, joint construction techniques, or other related issues.
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