The US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published a new TechBrief October, 2015 titled “Precast Concrete Pavement (PCP) Technology”. This publication also summarizes the technical resources available to engineers and planners seeking an understanding of PCP technology. Weblinks are provided for access to recent documents covering a range of PCP topics.
PCP is gaining wider acceptance in the U.S. for rapid repair and rehabilitation of concrete pavements as well as for reconstruction of heavily trafficked asphalt concrete intersections. Widespread use in the U.S. is fairly recent, with most projects in service less than about 14 years. Nonetheless, dozens of projects have been constructed, and advances continue to be made in all aspects of the technology, including panel design, fabrication, and installation. PCP technology is being used for intermittent repairs (both full- depth repairs and full panel replacement) and for continuous applications (longer-length/wider-area rehabilitation) with service life expectations of at least 20 years for repairs and at least 40 years for continuous applications, without significant future corrective treatment.
The review of projects constructed in the US and field testing of selected projects indicate that sufficient advances have been made to reliably design and construct PCP systems to achieve five key attributes of successful pavements:
- Constructability
- Concrete durability
- Load transfer at joints
- Panel support
- Performance/efficiency
PCP has been adopted for routine use by several highway agencies, as detailed in this TechBrief. Currently, FHWA is working with 15 highway agencies to implement the use of PCP for pavement repair and rehabilitation. These agencies have received funding awards under Round 3 and Round 6 of the Strategic Highway Research Program 2 (SHRP2) Implementation Assistance Program (IAP) (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/goshrp2/ImplementationAssistance). The Lead Adopter awards supplement the cost of a PCP project constructed by each recipient, and the User Incentive awards will help recipients to make PCP technology available for use on an agency-wide basis. This Tech Brief summarizes PCP technology implementation by U.S. highway agencies and includes:
PCP BACKGROUND The application of PCP technology can be classified as
- Intermittent repair applications
- Continuous applications: Jointed systems and Prestressed PCP systems
- Traffic Considerations The decision to use PCP for any repair or rehabilitation project is greatly influenced by the traffic volume along the project and availability of alternate routes to detour traffic without impacting traffic flow along the project and adjacent roadways.
- PCP Application Types
PCP IMPLEMENTATION This section describes the actions taken by various US states to implement the use of PCP for repair and rehabilitation of asphalt and concrete pavements. The 27 states in this TechBrief are:
- Alabama
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- D.C.
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Louisiana
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Nevada
- New Jersey
- New York
- Pennsylvania
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
SUMMARY
PCP TECHNICAL RESOURCES Resources are given for additional information on PCP systems, applications, guidelines, and usage.
To read the entire TechBrief PDF, please click on the image or go to:
http://fhwainter.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/pub_details.cfm?id=963.
Photo: FHWA SHRP2: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/goshrp2/Solutions/Renewal/R05/Precast_Concrete_Pavement.