Assessment of a New Type of Composite Rigid Pavement in France

A new concept of concrete pavement have been imagined and tested in France since 1998. It consists in a base layer of continuously reinforced concrete, bonded with a foundation layer of asphalt concrete. The stiffness of the asphalt material and its bonding with the concrete layer contribute to rigidify the structure, which makes it possible to appreciably decrease the thickness of the layer of CRCP. Moreover, the surface dressing and the very thin bituminous asphalt concrete placed at the top of the concrete lead to a waterproof pavement and give good surface characteristics to the wearing course. Two experimental pilot sections on heavy traffic roads were implemented in 1998 and 2001 in order to validate this new concept of rigid pavement and check the hypotheses assumed for its theoretical design. This article presents the main data produced by these two full-scale experiments after 7 and 4 years of strong traffic. Until now, the experimental structures show rather good performances and do not present any degradation, confirming the assumptions taken into account for the thickness computation. Furthermore, the innovative pavement is clearly more economic than the classical concrete structures.