Pavement System for a Container Handling Facility at Port Canaveral, Florida: Design, Construction and Load-Testing

This paper presents the design methodology, construction procedures and results of a full-scale load test on a pavement system for a container handling facility at Port Canaveral, Florida. The facility was constructed in an area that was created by raising under-water land with dredged materials that are expected to undergo differential compression under the anticipated high wheel loads from container handling equipment. To minimize the effects of differential settlement of the subgrade and lateral spreading of base course material, such as cracking, rutting and loss of serviceability, the pavement system was designed to consist of interlocking concrete pavers installed above a crushed granite base course reinforced with a layer of biaxial geogrid. The depth of the geogrid reinforcement layer within the base course for optimum performance of the pavement was determined by load-testing a pavement test strip. The test strip was constructed with the geogrid layer placed at different depths in three different sections, and the pavement was instrumented with stress cells and strain meters. Load-testing was conducted under both natural weather and simulated wet weather conditions using a loaded vehicle with wheel loads and tire pressures similar to those anticipated for the container handling facility. The relative performance of the three sections of the pavement test strip was monitored by continuously recording the stress cell and strain meter readings, and by measuring pavement surface settlements. Based on the results of the load test, the full-scale pavement was constructed with the geogrid reinforcement placed at a depth of 0.15 m below the top of the 0.46 m thick base course.