Rutting and drainage design methodology for a concrete block pavement

Abstract

Concrete block pavements (CBP) have historically been hics. used in low trafficked applications as an alternative to asphalt and concrete pavement because of their aesthetic quality. However, concrete block pavements have not been used for high volume, urban streets because of the lack of a design procedure that can accurately predict the performance of the pavement. This thesis presents a step by step design procedure that can be used to construct a concrete block pavement that is to allow water to infiltrate into the subbase thereby reducing the amount of surface water runoff. The pavement design considers the vehicle loads and intensities, subgraph strength, material strengths, and environmental conditions. Most importantly the design procedure provides a measure of the pavement's performance by predicting the amount of rutting. This thesis also presents the analysis of the structural performance of a concrete block pavement that was constructed at Texas A&M's Riverside campus. The empirical data indicates that the rutting of a concrete block pavement will decrease as the thickness of the subbase increases. It also indicates that an angular jointing sand will provide better interlock 01 the paver blocks than a s11300th, rounded jointing sand. The test data also shows that a paver block that interlocks on four sides will rut less than a paver block that interlocks on two sides. It is also apparent that most of the pavement's rutting occurred in the bedding layer. Computer modeling of the empirical data indicates that the concrete block pavement behaves like a flexible pavement and can be modeled as linear elastic with an equivalent asphalt layer 1-1.5 times the thickness of the paver blocks.