Rehabilitation of continuously reinforced concrete pavement with bonded overlay

In Texas, many miles of old Portland cement concrete (PCC) pavement need rehabilitation due to their deficient structural capacity and resulting pavement distresses. Bonded concrete overlay (BCO) presents one of the rehabilitation strategies to strengthen PCCP systems. In 1986, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) constructed a 4-inch BCO on existing continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) in Houston. A factorial design was developed to evaluate the effects of different materials/design features and the condition of existing pavement. Test sections were placed in accordance with the factorial experiment. Materials included were siliceous river gravel and crushed limestone as coarse aggregates. The use of welded wire fabric and steel fibers was the factors included as design features. Field evaluations were conducted to identify factors responsible for the difference in the performance. Overall, 4-inch BCO provided good performance for the last 20 years. From the surveyed results, welded wire fabric showed better performance than steel fibers. Crushed limestone also provided better performance than siliceous river gravel. The combinations of steel fiber and siliceous river gravel did not perform as well. The conditions of pavements prior to overlay do not appear to have substantial effects on BCO performance.