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Concrete Pavement Preservation

John Poullain, P.E.


Course Outline

This four-hour online course provides detailed description of the treatments used to maintain and preserve concrete pavements. The treatments include joint resealing and crack sealing, diamond grinding, dowel bar retrofit, and isolated partial and full depth concrete repairs. The course text can serve as comprehensive reference and ranges from general instructions to specific practices for the treatment methods. Topics discussed are the selection and use of concrete treatments, materials, design considerations, construction processes, and troubleshooting guides for pavement projects.  Preservation of asphalt concrete pavement is not covered in the course. Photographs and drawings illustrate the types of pavement distresses and appropriate treatment methods.

The course covers these topics:

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the student will have covered these topics:

Intended Audience

This course should benefit civil engineers, pavement engineers, transportation engineers, field and office personnel, supervisors and maintenance personnel.

Benefit to Attendees

The student will become familiar with the detailed description of the treatments used to maintain and preserve concrete pavements.

Course Introduction

Pavement preservation has become more important for maintaining the national highways. FHWA and its partnership with states and other agencies have realized the benefits of preservation systems which equate to better pavement performance, safety and increased pavement life. The goal is to address pavement problems before more serious damage occurs. Caltrans has developed a maintenance technical advisory guide (MTAG) to work on the programs for extending pavement life that will be cost effective. FHWA guidelines are followed. Such programs do not include new pavements or major rehabilitation or reconstruction.

Components of pavement preservation:

  1. Minor rehab
  2. Preventative maintenance
  3. Routine maintenance

The course text discusses five treatment methods for common pavement distresses, design considerations, construction processes and equipment used, project checklists and troubleshooting guides. Guidance for selecting the best alternative treatments, causes and solutions are shown. Factors influencing performance including climate, traffic loading, and maintenance and construction activities are considered.

Course Content

The course is based on the Caltrans MTAG publication “Rigid Pavement Preservation – Volume II”, Chapters 4-8, (2008 Edition, 116 pages), PDF file.

Caltrans MTAG publication “Rigid Pavement Preservation – Volume II”, Chapters 4-8

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

Course Summary

This course should serve as a guide to assist pavement engineers, field personnel and others. Additionally the course describes the construction, treatment methods, equipment, and materials used for the preservation and maintenance of rigid pavements. Checklists, troubleshooting guides and websites are included.  

Related Links

For additional technical information related to this subject, please refer to:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/ltpp
This is a FHWA publication regarding the LTPP program, newsletters, frost penetration and moisture content parameters and other factors influencing pavement performance.             

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/desi.cfm
FHWA website discusses design, construction, and maintenance of US pavements.

http://www.vulcanhammer.net/geotechnical
Offers geotechnical downloads for various manuals from FHWA, Dept. of the Interior, US Army Corps of Engineers and papers submitted by collages and PE’s. Case studies, recent developments and downloadable software are available.

http://techtransfer.berkeley.edu/pavementpres/#@pelim
UC Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies for pavement preservation and maintenance.

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.