Introduction to Crack Treatments

With agencies facing reduced funding and exponential increases in costs to reconstruct their pavements they are faced with the need to search for alternatives that efficiently extend the effectiveness of their limited resources. This presentation will focus on some of these alternatives with quantifiable data showing the extension of service life and how to get better returns for the investment. The "filling" of cracks in asphalt pavements, has been a maintenance and construction function for many years. Until recent years, the "filling" approach was accepted as a medial maintenance task knowing the value was a short term direction. The question we must ask ourselves today is, "Do we want to "fill" the crack or do we want to "seal" the crack? Not all cracks are the same; consequently, there should be different techniques and materials to address the different requirements.