Development of a Prectrnssing Method for Joints of Precast Prestressed Concrete Pavement Slabs

As precast prestressed concrete pavement slabs with high strength are resistant to abrasion and enable fast construction, they have been increasingly used in Japan instead of the conventional pavements, especially in heavy traffic roads and airfields. 1-lowever, in precast prestressed concrete slab pavements with plenty of dowelled joints, pumping and erosion often nccured resulting in joint faulting and a shorteninq of the desiqn life. In order to solve these problems, a new prestressing method which considerably improves the load transfer at the joints has been recently developed. No slip at a joint of two one-day slabs was observed for pure shear force up to failure in laboratory tests. Measurements of a pavement in situ just after construr.tion and six months later also showed no faulting at the joints and the concrete strain measured near to the joints could be explained with the Multi-Layer Elastic Theory.