Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement with Asphalt Top Layer or Surface Texture from Diamond Grinding- the Trial Site on Motorway A94

For many years, the traffic volumes and percentage of heavy traffic on German roads and motorways have steadily increased and this trend is expected to continue in the future. To guarantee mobility in the future, road construction with a maximum service life and a minimum of necessary maintenance are needed. In Germany, concrete pavements are traditionally built with Jointed Plain Concrete (JPC), designed for a service life of 30 years. However, it is well known that the transverse joints in JPC pavements are the weakest aspect of this method. There is another way to build concrete pavement: Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement (CRCP). This type of construction is, for example, standard in Belgium and in some states in the USA. With CRCP, cracking freely occurs, and because of the reinforcement, smaller “slabs” occur. Load transfer is provided through aggregate interlock that is facilitated by the continuous longitudinal reinforcement. Experience so far has shown that CRCP achieves a longer service life, has better ride quality, and that less maintenance is needed compared to JPC pavements. Both unreinforced and continuously reinforced concrete pavements can be covered with an asphalt top layer. In this way, the surface requirements for skid resistance and noise are provided by the asphalt, and the structural capacity by the concrete below. CRCP is especially suitable for this purpose because there are no discontinuities in the form of transverse joints. This Composite Pavements have the potential for a service life of 50 years, and the life cycle costs will be lower than the current standard. To raise awareness of the potential benefits of this pavement, test sections along motorway A94 near Forstinning in Bavaria were constructed in 2011. This trial consisted of three parts: CRCP with a thin hot-mix asphalt top layer, jointed plain concrete with a thin hot-mix asphalt top layer, and jointed plain concrete with surface texture from diamond grinding. Under the framework of the Research Association for Roads and Traffic (FGSV), Working Group 8.3.4 was created. This group, together with the Building Department of Bavaria and the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt), created a concept and then implemented it by starting a research program. The first results from this research are with respect to cracking of the CRCP, movement at the end anchors, and adhesion between asphalt and concrete.