Greg Dean
Mid-August 2021, the American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) and the Concrete Pavement Technology Center (CP Tech Center) hosted a webinar on pavement resilience titled “Proper Planning Prevents Disaster and Aids in Crisis Management—A Concrete Pavement Industry Perspective”. The webinar was attended by nearly 250 individuals representing agencies and academia.
Guest speaker Greg Dean, Executive Director-Carolinas Concrete Paving Association–ACPA,
focused his presentation on 2 topics:
• The need to design more resilient pavements
• The array of solutions that will help ensure longer pavement life
Webinar highlights included:
• Various climate risks associated with pavement design
• How changing climate impacts pavement layers and performance
• Debate on the concrete pavement industry perspective on why pavement resilience matters
• Knowledge of available concrete and cement-based solutions to boost pavements’ resilience
A recent United Nations’ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) report confirmed that our climate will continue to get warmer and wetter—adding further stress to our transportation infrastructure. The combination of rising sea levels, storm frequency and intensity will increase the likelihood that more of our pavements will spend a significant portion of their lives inundated with water. Furthermore, Greg stressed that our pavements will likely be exposed to more rescue vehicles and clean-up related loads that were not accounted for during initial design. It’s just the nature of what happens following a catastrophic storm event, our infrastructure gets reloaded with heavy vehicles when it is most susceptible to stress.
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Fortunately, tools already exist that can help local agencies:
• While designing a new pavement, agencies can account for lower anticipated subgrade strengths by characterizing materials in a (longer) soaked state. Countries, like Australia are already doing this. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) publications point to the use of stabilized subgrades and base layers when one is trying to boost resilience in a wetter climate
• The latest FHWA Everyday Counts (EDC-6) Initiative identifies another possible solution: Targeted Overlays. Over the last decade, our industry has seen tremendous growth in the use of concrete overlays and we expect that to continue as the importance of constructing long-life pavements in flood-prone environments increase. As example:
—at least 10 airports within the FAA Southern Region have incorporated concrete overlays to improve pavement conditions and slow deterioration (see slide above).
In closing, Greg stated, “Agencies can respond by
1) evaluating pavements that have been exposed to adverse climatic changes, then
2) be open toward using a “mix of fix” approach“
No single strategy will improve the resilience of all our pavements, but we must stop repeating pavement designs that fail prematurely. The concrete paving industry offers grey solutions that will harden the system and spread the load. Engineering for anticipated conditions and the use of proven rehabilitation techniques can help ensure assets and limited resources are maximized.
If you wish to learn more about the durability of concrete and the use of concrete overlays, REGISTER FOR THE 12th International Conference on Concrete Pavements and see the ISCP August 2021 article on EDC-6 Targeted Overlay Pavement Solutions titled “TOPS: Safety, Savings, Performance; Extend Life 15-40 Years; Overlay Resources…”: www.concretepavements.org/2021/08/20/tops-safety-savings-performance-extend-life-15-40-years-overlay-resources/
For the webinar on the CP Tech Center website, please go to: https://cptechcenter.org/webinars-and-videos/
For the REPORT, please go to: www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
EDC-6 Targeted Overlays: www.fhwa.dot.gov/innovation/everydaycounts/edc_6/targeted_overlay_pavement.cfm