PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF COMPOSITE PAVEMENTS

Abstract

A variety of conventional construction practices have been adopted by construction agencies in respect of flexible and rigid pavements. Flexible pavements consist of one or more layers of granular material to which is applied an asphaltic wearing course. Loads are carried principally by individual interaction between the particles of granular base course and each layer transmits a load of diminishing intensity to the underlying layers or to the subgrade. Rigid type pavements consist of relatively non yielding monolithic °layer of plain cement concrete which acts a single unit and carry their loads by slab action. Until recently, it has been common practice to classify pavement as either rigid or flexible. Actually there are a large group of materials which are neither flexible nor rigid. For the interest of promoting a better understanding of the nature of the various materials available a third category of composite pavement can be established. In this Thesis work, two types of composite pavements are constructed using Plain Cement Concrete (PCC) and Steel Fibres Lean Concrete (SFLC) as base and Bituminous Concrete (BC) as surface course. The main purpose of mixing steel fibres in lean cement concrete is to increase the strength properties of lean mix.