Evaluating the Effect of Slab Curling on IRI for South Carolina Concrete Pavements.

摘要

Concrete pavements are known to curl due to a temperature gradient within the concrete caused by both daily and seasonal temperature variations. This research project measured the magnitude of concrete pavement slab curling of two newly constructed jointed plain concrete pavements in South Carolina and the effect of the slab curling on rideability of the pavements. Three methods were used to measure the amount of slab curling: digital indicators suspended over the pavement surface, a terrestrial laser scanner, and a high-speed inertial profiler. It was found that the pavements showed small changes in curvature as the temperature increased during the day. These changes also correlated to increases in the International Roughness Index (IRI) measurement of the pavement, the IRI increase were found to be less than 10 inches/mile on days with large swings in temperature. The change in IRI from seasonal temperature variations was in the range of 1 to 4 inches/mile. Based on this research project, it is recommended that SCDOT schedule its quality acceptance rideability testing of concrete pavements for the same time of day (i.e. afternoon) to reduce the variation in the IRI measurements caused by daily temperature cycles and make measurements from different roads more comparable.