Use of Ultra-High-Performance Fiber-Reinforced Concrete (UHP-FRC) for Fast and Sustainable Repair of Pavements

This research presents a new methodology, which enables streets, roads, highways, bridges, and airfields to use an advanced fiber-reinforced concrete material, which can delay or prevent the deterioration of these transportation infrastructure when subjected to traffic and environmental loadings. The major problem of concrete is its considerable deterioration and limited service life due to its brittleness and limited durability. As a result, it requires frequent repair and eventual replacement, which consumes more natural resources. Ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHP-FRC) introduces significant enhancement in the sustainability of concrete structures due to its dense microstructure and damage-tolerance characteristics. These characteristics can significantly reduce the amount of repair, rehabilitation, and maintenance work, thereby giving the transportation infrastructure a longer service life. This research addresses the strong need to develop fast and sustainable UHP-FRC materials for pavement repair that can be easily cast onsite without special treatments. This avoids any major changes to current concrete production practice and accelerates the use of UHP-FRC materials. This research investigated a new method for concrete repair by combining precast UHP-FRC panels with a small quantity of cast-in-place UHP-FRC for pavement repair without any dowel bars. In this method, a precast UHP-FRC panel is used along with cast-in-place UHP-FRC. The vertical repair surfaces of the existing concrete are roughened on site. The outer edges of the UHP-FRC precast panel are roughened before they are brought to the site (no dowel bars are needed). The depth of the precast UHP-FRC panel is the same as the existing pavement thickness. Only a small cast-in-place UHP-FRC joint (one to two inches wide) is done onsite. The roughened precast UHP-FRC panel is placed in the repair area and cast-in-place UHP-FRC is cast into the joint. Experimental results showed that using a roughened surface (up to about CSP 5) provides a very large bond resistance, which is enough to prevent faulting.Tran-SET Project No. 17STUTA0