Spanish Experience in the Design of Long-Life Pavements

As an example of Spanish experience in the design of long-life pavements, this paper is going to examine the above-mentioned construction project for a stretch of motorway with a pavement of exposed aggregateexposed aggregate concrete. The cross-section of the pavement comprises: - 23 cm of HF 4.5 (concrete with a characteristic modulus of rupture of 4.5 MPa a t 28 days) with a finish of exposed aggregate. - 15 cm of HM (vibrated lean concrete). The hard shoulders are designed to have 15 cm of plain concrete (HM) on a layer of crushed draining granular material with no additional wearing course on top of the concrete. A longitudinal reinforcement of Ø 20 bars was designed for each 3.5 m lane and a geometric amount of 0.78%. The transverse reinforcement designed is 2 Ø 12 every metre, with a transverse geometric amount of 0.098%. The longitudinal joints are as follows: - Construction joint at 0.5 m from the right roadway marking. - Warping joint at 0.25 m to the left of the line separating the two central lanes.