Alternative Material Dowel Bars for Rigid Pavement Joints

Over the last thirty to forty years, dowel support of the joint in Rigid Joint Pavement (RJP) has been widely used. The problem of deterioration of concrete pavement joints has resulted in the search for alternate solutions. Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) and stainless steel represent corrosion resistant alternatives to conventional galvanized steel in this application. The recently study by the FHWA of Alternative Materials for Highway Construction demonstrated that even with extended wet-dry cycles of exposure to fluids of high chloride content, at various temperatures and PH levels, stainless steel had corrosion resistance hundreds and in many cases thousands of times the corrosion resistance of the alternative materials tested