Material Characterization of Roller-Compacted Concrete Pavements

Abstract

Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) pavements present an advantageous cost and construction alternative over conventional concrete pavements without sacrificing the service life and performance of the conventional concrete pavement. However, RCC pavement still faces many challenges that limit its use as a paving option due to the lack of standards to characterize the RCC mixture prior to its placement and the absence of methodologies to understand the behavior and evaluate its performance under traffic and environmental conditions. Therefore, characterizing the RCC mixture and understanding the behavior of the RCC pavement can be vital to facilitate its use in high-speed roadways.

The main objectives of this study were to characterize RCC materials in terms of moisture diffusivity and density to help future interpretation of resulting stresses as a function of the curing and climatic conditions at the time of construction; model the workability and evaluate density prior to placement; model the transport properties of RCC specimens to facilitate the evaluation of RCC durability; develop new methodologies to quickly measure density and moisture in the field as well as evaluate the short- and long- term performance of RCC pavements under traffic loading.

In this study, a new testing configuration and interpretation method was developed for the well-known Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) as a tool to estimate the electrical properties of RCC specimens in the lab. The developed method was used i) to establish the moisture and density profile of RCC mixtures with different aggregate gradation and curing conditions in the lab and ii) to characterize the diffusivity and permeability of RCC by suggesting a change in the rapid chloride permeability (RCPT) test procedure. This dissertation also recommends using the compactibility of RCC as a metric to evaluate the workability and compaction energy required for RCC mixtures before placement. Furthermore, a PaveScan methodology was introduced to assess the on-site density of RCC surface conditions after placement. Lastly, a framework to evaluate the short- and long-term performance of RCC pavement under environmental conditions and traffic loading was proposed.

The procedures developed in this dissertation are envisioned to impact the understanding of RCC mixture before and after placement as well as the short and long-term RCC pavement performance. Although RCC material and pavement are concerned in this dissertation, developed procedures can be used for other infrastructures and composite materials.