Flatness and Levelness of Concrete Pavements for Industrial Areas Requirements and Evaluation Methods

Among various construction activities, related to concrete pavement technologies, an important role is reserved to industrial floors; these structures, in many cases, present the same technical problems of road pavements. Characteristics, construction techniques, exercise conditions, maintenance and control of industrial pavements, in effect, are very similar to the ones usually defined for road infrastructures; on the other hand, in both cases it is necessary to ensure resistance and stability, durability, reliability and many other requirements. In particular, the flatness is a special requirement that assumes a real significance respect to functional performances, especially when the pavement has to allow the movement of vehicles and goods or the storage in elevated stacks or shelves. The flatness can be defined in different ways, but in every cases it is referred to pavement surface geometry, that has to be even (without superelevated or depressed areas) and level (horizontal, without grades, curvatures and waves). The acceptance limits are defined by some technical standards, in various Countries, together with the suitable methods for measurements and controls. In many cases, however, these methods are considered not really feasible or easy, in particular when a continuous sampling of the pavement, along the selected alignments, is needed. To facilitate the effectiveness of the control methods, it is possible to realize the surveys and the following data processing as in the infrastructure management activities. In particular, the paper describes the operating procedures to calculate indexes FF and FL, according to ASTM 1155M standard, starting from data provided by a contact profilometer.