Concrete Structures Made of One Piece Lean Concrete Slabs French Experiments and Pavement Design – Future Developments

France has an extended experience in hydraulic binder treated materials: in semi-rigid structures, in cement concrete thick slabs, in lean concrete for concrete pavement subbase layers. It has permit-ted to establish a new and very competitive struc-ture: the lean concrete thick slab on a drainingcourse with or without tranverse joints.A first implementation was performed in 1987onRN 57 in the Haute Saône; the behaviour is verygood up to now.Besides, the use of continuously reinforced con-crete is expanding in France, with the upsurge ofa new type of reinforcement called ribbed strip.Putting together the lean concrete thick slabs andthe continuously reinforced concrete techniquesallowsto design anew structure: continuously rein-forced lean concrete thick single course.