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Description: Describes comprehensive field evaluation of North American RCC pavement projects up to 20 years old, in applications such as logging, intermodal, military and conventional road applications. Performance is reported as very good, in terms of smoothness, jointing, freeze-thaw durability, and maintenance requirements. 32 projects were visually inspected with detailed reports and pictures for 18 projects included in the appendix. This report is also found on DVD021.
It is estimated that more than 140 roller-compacted concrete (RCC) pavement projects have been constructed in North America over the past twenty-four years. Very little has been written about the performance of these pavements. This report addresses the long term performance of RCC pavements under various applications and climatic conditions. A visual inspection was made of 34 projects throughout the United States and Canada with individual reports prepared on 18 of those projects. Reported projects include roads, military facilities, a log sorting yard, storage areas, intermodal terminals, and compost facilities. The age of the pavements varied from 3 to 20 years. In general, the long-term performance of RCC pavements has been very good. The quality of the RCC pavements in terms of smoothness, jointing, and durability has greatly improved since the first projects were built in the 1970's. Very little evidence of structure failure was observed in the pavements studied. However, several of the pavements showed loss of fine aggregate from their surface within two to four years service. This loss of surface fines resulted in an exposed aggregate appearance. While several operators acknowledged that an RCC pavement was not as high a quality as conventional concrete, nearly all agreed that RCC was an acceptable, lower cost pavement alternative to both conventional concrete and asphalt. Contents include: Objectives Introduction Background and Literature Review Observations (Surface Texture & Condition, Joints, Load Transfer at Joints Surface Smoothness, Freeze/Thaw and Deicer Scaling Resistance) Conclusions
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