Design, Construction, and Performance of Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement Reinforced with GFRP Bars: Case Study
Publication: Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 24, Issue 5
Abstract
The application of deicing salt on roads during the winter is one of the main reasons for steel corrosion in reinforced-concrete pavements in cold-weather regions such as Canada and the Northern United States. Steel corrosion creates internal stresses in the concrete that cause the concrete to burst. This reduces the service life of pavements and increases maintenance costs. This study presents a long-term field test of a continuously reinforced-concrete pavement (CRCP) reinforced with glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars located on Highway 40 West (Montreal, Quebec). The design procedures, construction details, performance, and monitoring results for a 306-m-long section of GFRP-CRCP are presented. Three different types of fiber-optic sensors were used to monitor the pavement behavior and to evaluate the long-term performance of this type of CRCP. The field inspection ran for 6 years after the time of construction, and the data covering 30 months were analyzed. The concrete crack width, concrete crack spacing and rate, concrete temperature, concrete strain, and GFRP-bar strain behavior were recorded and investigated. The GFRP-CRCP and a 94-m-long stretch of steel-CRCP on that highway were compared in terms of crack width, spacing, and rate. Site inspection showed that neither type of pavement exceeded the crack-width limit of 1.0 mm set by the available design standard for pavement structures. The crack rate of the CRCP reinforced with GFRP bars was generally lower than that with steel bars. Moreover, the field test results after 6 years under actual service conditions revealed that GFRP-CRCP provides very competitive performance in comparison to steel-CRCP. Lastly, design equations were developed and proposed to determine the longitudinal-reinforcement ratio for the GFRP-CRCP based on the available design standard.
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Acknowledgments
This research was conducted with funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC-Industry Research Chair program), the Fonds de recherche du Quebec en Nature et Technologies (FRQ-NT), and the Ministry of Transportation of Quebec (MTQ).
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- CW
- crack width (mm);
- D
- thickness of the slab (mm);
- DTD
- design temperature drop, which is the difference between the average temperature after concrete placement and the mean daily minimum winter temperature (°C);
- EGFRP
- modulus of elasticity of the GFRP bars (GPa);
- fa
- average coefficient of friction between the slab and the foundation of the pavement;
- ft
- concrete indirect tensile strength (MPa);
- L′
- distance from the longitudinal joint to the free edge of the slab (m) (i.e., for two- or three-lane highways L′ is the lane width);
- P
- required longitudinal reinforcement (%);
- Pmax
- maximum required longitudinal reinforcement (%);
- Pmin
- minimum required longitudinal reinforcement (%);
- maximum crack spacing (m) (taken as 2.4 m);
- minimum crack spacing (m) (taken as 1.1 m);
- Z
- concrete shrinkage at 28 days (mm/mm);
- αc
- concrete coefficient of thermal expansion (°C−1);
- αs
- steel coefficient of thermal expansion (°C−1);
- γc
- concrete density (N/mm3);
- σGFRP
- longitudinal GFRP stress limit of 35% of the guaranteed minimum tensile strength (MPa);
- σs
- longitudinal steel stress limit of 75% of the yield stress (MPa);
- σw
- wheel–load stress (MPa); and
- φ
- reinforcement-bar diameter (mm).
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Published In
Journal of Composites for Construction
Volume 24 • Issue 5 • October 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 23, 2019
Accepted: May 20, 2020
Published online: Jul 30, 2020
Published in print: Oct 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Dec 30, 2020
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