Performance of the Ecopave System After Five Years Trafficking

ECOPAVE is a system of laying concrete through a modified bituminous paver, inducing transverse cracks into the concrete, and overlaying with a thin bituminous surfacing. The system has been developed through a BRITE project with partners in the UK and Denmark. It is coiisideied to provide economic benefits over the whole life of the pavement. The system has been developed after extensive laboratory testing, feasibility trials and a full-scale trial on the trunk road network. In August 1990 a 1km length of ECOPAVF. was incorporated into the contract for dualling a section of the A30 in Cornwall. The basic construction was a surfacing of 40mm hot rolled asphalt wearing course on a 25mm roIled asphalt regulating course, laid on a 235mm ECOPAVE concrete roadbase, on 150mm unbound granular subbase, on a laminated rock subgrade. At construction the trial length met the requirements for surface evenness and texture. Since construction, the surface texture has reduced slightly, skid-resistance has remained consistent and the rutting is as expected in a road of this age. There are significant differences in the road unevenness of the various lengths. The benefit of inducing cracks can be clearly seen from the visual inspections, and from the measured load transfers and movement at the cracks. The natural cracks reflected through the surfacing at an early age, some of the induced cracks took longer to reflect through the surfacing depending upon the crack spacing, none of the im and 2111 spaced cracks had reflected through the thin surfacing after five years trafficking.