Highways

In 2005, a forensic engineering study was conducted on a recently constructed concrete pavement located along the Pan-American Highway (CA-1) in El Salvador. The primary distress was observed to be full-depth cracking, predominantly in the longitudinal direction. This type of cracking was noted to occur just a few months after...

For three years the Roads and Traffic Administration (AWV) of Flemish Brabant in Belgium has been using the technique of ultrafast-track (UFT) concrete paving for the rehabilitation of several road sections. The aim is to achieve a compressive strength of 40 N/mm² on cores after 30 to 36 h of...

The street is not a road because it fulfils multiple functions as a travel, social, cultural and economic space. The choice and organisation of surfacing play an important role, which must be clearly identified by roadway players. Cement concrete in all its urban forms occupies a place of choice in...

The skid resistance of a road surface is of high importance for road safety. All kinds of controllable acceleration, deceleration and steering actions are only possible, if the road surface offers at least the same adhesion as the driver’s action requires. It gets even more difficult due to the fact...

The Administration of the Ministry of Equipment and Transport of the Walloon Government, together with researchers of the Federation of the Belgian Cement Industry and the Belgian Road Research Centre, put into practice a software program for the structural design of pavements. This program is in use for several years...

From many decades concrete has been successively applied in road construction in many countries. The scale of these applications is different depending on local experience and tradition. Concrete pavement is many a time more profitable solution than bituminous pavements. It refers not only to the construction of motorways or express...

Plain Jointed Concrete Pavements (PJCP) are used on Swedish concrete roads. In the Swedish road construction specifications there are two alternatives for bound roadbases which can be used in concrete pavements. Generally a 150 mm thick cement-bound roadbase (CG) has been used. As an alternative a 100 mm thick asphalt-bound...

The joint system presented herein takes advantage of the natural development of shrinkage in concrete to induce the formation of joints along the projections of previously placed system devices. Such system induces in an in-situ concrete pavement an efficient interlocking indentation among the slab elements resulting from the shrinkage phenomenon....

Early in 2005 the “Steenokkerzeel bypass road” was opened for traffic. This road forms a type of ring road around Steenokkerzeel centre. This new road was linked to the centre via roundabouts in two places. The bypass road as well as both roundabouts were laid in continuously reinforced concrete, the...

Design and construction of road intersections in the form of roundabouts is getting more and more popular not only in urban areas but also on highly trafficked primary rural roads due to their high road safety potential. Well designed roundabouts show improved safety characteristics by reducing the number and, particularly,...

The High Plateau (known as Altiplano) in Bolivia has unique climate. The high altitude, over 4000 m above sea level, relative humidity, as low as 20% and daily temperature ranges between 25° C max. day down to – 10°C at night during winter time, impose special construction processes for concreting...

Heterogeneous photocatalysis is a rapidly developing field in environmental engineering. It has a great potential to cope with the increasing pollution by traffic. The addition of a photocatalyst to ordinary building materials such as concrete, creates environmental friendly materials by which air pollution or pollution of the surface itself can...