The effects of the early-age concrete behaviour on the in-service performance of Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements

For their characteristics, concrete pavements are particularly valuable in critical traffic hubs as intersections or roundabouts, roads with predominant trucks traffic or bus corridors, bus stops, bus stations, industrial floors, yards and airport aprons. In particular, in Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements (JPCPs) cracks are produced under the joints as a result of the restricted deformations in the concrete at early-age. The in-service JPCP performance is affected by the width of those cracks, especially in non-dowelled JPCPs, where the transfer of loads between slabs depends on the aggregate interlock. This is especially relevant nowadays with the incorporation of the innovative (non-dowelled) short slabs JPCPs. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the effects of the early-age concrete behaviour on the in-service performance of traditional and short slabs JPCPs. For that, not only the structural performance is considered but also the functional one because it is directly related with the pavement clients’ satisfaction. As part of the analyses, field measurements were performed in JPCPs of Belgium and Chile, including traditional and short slabs JPCPs in urban, interurban, industrial and airport applications. The analyses presented in this thesis (i.e. including the effects of the early-age concrete behaviour on the in-service performance of JPCPs) show the structural, functional and economic advantages of short slabs JPCPs compared to traditional JPCPs, resulting from the reduction of the slab length, the new traffic load configurations, the reduction of slab curvature (and the variation of it) and the finer cracks at joints.