Development of a Catalog to Design Unbonded Concrete Overlay Pavements Considering Climate and Traffic Conditions in Korea

초록

In this study, a catalog was developed to design the thickness of an unbonded concrete overlay (UBCO), a type of concrete overlay for deteriorated concrete pavements. Using the Korean pavement design program, the thicknesses of new jointed plain concrete pavements (JPCPs) in 67 regions of Korea were designed based on annual average daily traffic (AADT). The most conservative design thickness among these regions was used to develop a slab-thickness catalog for the new JPCP. Additionally, a catalog for the UBCO thickness, which is mechanistically equivalent to the new JPCP, was developed using finite element analysis by considering the condition and thickness of the existing JPCP. Furthermore, the UBCO design catalog was compared with the Portland Cement Association (PCA) chart and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) equation. All the design methods revealed that the UBCO thickness increased as the existing slab became thinner. Unlike PCA and USACE, the catalog generally designs the UBCO to be significantly thinner than the new slabs, regardless of the elastic modulus of the existing pavement, which ranges from 20 to 28 GPa. Future studies should investigate the effect of the elastic modulus of an existing slab on UBCO design thickness.

키워드