Engineering Proceedings (Jul 2023)
Prediction of Blow-Up Potential Due to Concrete Pavement Growth
Abstract
Concrete pavement growth can cause blow-ups and other pressure-related issues, such as concrete buckling and crushing at the transverse cracks or joints. In addition, these issues result in damaged to adjoining structures, such as bridge abutments, decks, and access structures in the pavement. However, available theoretical solutions and methods for evaluating pavement growth and predictions of concrete pavement blow-up are considerably limited. In this study, therefore, the pavement growth and blow-up analysis model was developed to predict the blow-up potential due to concrete pavement growth. This model considered factors such as the pavement structure and materials, climatic conditions, configuration of expansion joint, base friction characteristics, geometric imperfection, rotational stiffness of joints, and design reliability. In addition, the pavement growth and blow-up analysis model can be used to predict the service life of expansion joints and the blow-up occurrence time by considering the factors affecting it. Using the developed model, various sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the factors affecting the potential concrete pavement growth and blow-up occurrence. It was found that the factors of substrate type, coefficient of thermal expansion, precipitation, and alkali–silica reaction had a significant effect on pavement growth and blow-up occurrence times.
Keywords