A Critical Assessment of Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement (JPCP) Using Sensing Technology – A Case Study on I-285

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2015-05-20
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Most of the Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement (JPCP) in Georgia was laid in the 1970s. The inservice JPCPs have carried significant traffic (e.g., more than 2 times of designed ESALs) and now are in need of concrete pavement restoration (CPR), such as broken slab replacement, grinding, and joint reseal. Detailed distress information, including crack type, length, severity level, and condition of adjacent slabs, are essential for determining CPR need at the slab-level and estimating the quantity (e.g., length of slab replacement). However, current manual survey cannot provide such detailed information, especially on multi-lane roadways with high traffic volumes. In this paper, a method is proposed to effectively identify the slabs that need to be replaced and accurately estimate their lengths using geo-referenced joint and distress information, especially crack patterns that can be extracted from 3D pavement data. A case study was conducted on a 1-mile section on I-285, one of Atlanta's most heavily traveled roadways. This section was built in 1968 as 10-in un-doweled JPCP with 30-ft joint spacing. It has lasted 45 years and carried more than 4 million ESALs. Detailed distress data, including joint location, crack type, and length was extracted from 3D pavement data and used to determine the CPR (e.g. 6-ft to 30-ft slab replacement) at the slab-level. The case study, using the actual pavement distress data on an interstate highway, demonstrated the proposed method is promising for developing an accurate, cost-effective, and safe CPR program.

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Tsai, Y., Wu, Y., & Doan, J. (2015, June). A critical assessment of jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP) using sensing technology - a case study on i-285. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Managing Pavement Assets, Alexandria, VA. Presentation retrieved from www.apps.vtti.vt.edu/PDFs/icmpa9/session14/Wu.pdf