Mechanistic Analysis of Continuously Reinforce Concrete Pavements ConsideringMaterial Characteristics, Variability, and Fatigue

摘要

In the study, a mechanistic analysis was performed to evaluate structuralresponses of continuously reinforced concrete (CRC) pavements to various environmental and wheel loading conditions. For environmental loads, most of the volume change stresses are caused by a transfer of stress from the steel to concrete through bond slippage between concrete and steel. The current knowledge of bond stresses is used in the development of the volume change mechanism incorporated in the analysis. Wheel load stresses depend on many factors. In the study, an effort was made to identify the relationship between wheel load stresses and transverse crack spacings. One major characteristic of CRC pavement behavior is that there is variability in the performance. A simulation model is used to incorporate the material variabilities in the analysis. A mechanistic analysis of the CRC pavement system, including the stochastic nature of material variabilities, is presented herein. A distress prediction model is developed considering fatigue behavior of concrete. The performance of CRC pavement is closely related to the variation in transverse crack spacings. There are many factors affecting transverse cracking in CRC pavement. The major failure mode in CRC pavement is the punchout. It is due to the fatigue failure of concrete. A mechanistic model to estimate pavement life in terms of frequency of punchouts is developed in the project. The approach is a sound one, because it correlates the factors causing failures with the actual distress occurrence. After it is refined and calibrated with field data, it is expected that the model can be used for the design and economic analysis of CRC pavement systems.