Classification and Methods for Rehabilitation of Concrete Pavement- a Spanish Example

Highways superficial rehabilitation appears nowadays as one environmental friendly option to increase the service life of pavements. The remaining structural section is responsible for providing enough resistance for the ongoing traffic loads. The basic goal of this kind of treatments is to recover a certain level of comfort and security when driving, mostly measured by the evenness, evaluated by the International Regularity Index (IRI), and the skid resistance, measured by the SCRIM system. These can be achieved through treatments with or without materials addition. While it is frequent with asphalt mixtures to restore the pavement by adding new asphalt layer (with or without a previous milling) and getting structural and superficial upgrading by this method, in case of concrete pavements is quite different. Inlays and overlays are less used because their usual thickness, choosing usually a complete substitution of the concrete slab. Consequently several superficial improving techniques, including grooving, grinding and micro-milling, have been developed or updated, suitable either for rehabilitation or even as a constructive technique in new pavements. It must pay special attention to protection of joints during jobs. As an example a 1300 meters long concrete pavement in a tunnel has been micro-milled in its hole length.