Concrete Pavements for Heavy Traffic Areas

The space available on our roads is becoming less and less. All forecasts agree that the increase in traffic will also cotiliiiue to grow considerably in the years before us. At the same time, because of the changes in political conditions in Europe and the opening of the frontiers, there will be a particularly crass increase in road freight traffic, that is to say, in heavy freight traffic. An increase in traffic and higher traffic loads characterise the overall conditions that road structures have to cope with. This is the reason for the extreme importance attached to the economic efficiency and service value of a road - and, in this case, to the pavement of the road in particular. For more than 60 years concrete pavements have been built on German motorways. The experience gained in this way as well as scientific research have provided a safe and improved basis for the design and construction of concrete pavements. The construction industry has also played a large part in this progress by developing new construction processes and modern placement equipment, such as the slipform paver, which has simplified the production of concrete pavements and made them more economical.