Longer closures reduce the overall disruption to the traveling public,

provide greater life expectancy for the pavement, improve safety, and
significantly reduce construction costs.
• The existing pavement of 200 mm (8 in) of concrete over 100 mm
(4 in) of CTB over 300 mm (12 in) of aggregate base was replaced with
290 mm (11½ in) of concrete over 150 mm (6 in) of asphalt over half of
the reused aggregate base. The pavement grade was not changed. The
outer truck lane was widened by 600 mm (2 ft) to reduce edge-loading
stresses.
• Caltrans went to considerable effort to communicate to the public how
the selected strategy would reduce the overall project duration and
minimize disruption to the traveling public. An automated work zone
information system gave the public travel time and detour information
on changeable message signs. Public outreach materials included
comprehensive project brochures and flyers, a construction advisory
electronic bulletin, and a project information hotline. A project website
was used to communicate information to the public and also to gather
feedback. Several public meetings were held for local communities.
• Rapid strength gain concrete with type III cement allowed opening the
pavement to traffic in 12 hours. About 50 percent of the project was
able to use a more conventional concrete with type II cement, as long
as 24 hours of curing was available.
• Project completion time incentives and disincentives and late opening
penalties were specified in the contract.
On larger projects, the bulk of the project may be paved with regular
concrete with small amounts of high early strength concrete used for small
final closure strips. This approach was adopted for critical taxiway tieins
during new runway construction at Cleveland Hopkins International
Airport, although it was found that with proper planning the conventional
concrete achieved sufficient early strength and it was not necessary to use
high early strength concrete (Peshkin et al. 2006b).
Case studies of similar projects can provide valuable insights into available
techniques and strategies. Peshkin et al. (2006a,b) review a number of
airport case studies. The ACPA report Traffic Management – Handbook
for Concrete Pavement Reconstruction and Rehabilitation (ACPA 2000c:
iii, 50) discusses highway and street case studies:
• Reconstruction of the Eden’s Expressway in north suburban Chicago
required the Illinois DOT to use a wide range of accelerated paving
techniques and provided much of the information for the ACPA Handbook.
• In Denver, Colorado, 75 days were cut from a 200-day schedule for
construction of an urban arterial.
Introduction 15
• In Johnson County, Kansas, a major intersection was repaved over a
weekend with a whitetopping overlay.
If high early strength concrete is used, it is important to consider durability.
Some mixtures that achieve strength in 6–8 hours have shown durability
problems, although not in all cases. Durability of high early strength
concrete is discussed in Chapter 6 and by Van Dam et al. (2005). It is
particularly frustrating to agencies and users when repairs fail quickly and
need to be repeated.
Recycling and reuse of materials
The construction of highways, bridges and buildings has been increasing
from the beginning of the past century, especially in areas of high
population density. These facilities need to be repaired or replaced
with the passing of time because their end of service life is reached or
the original design no longer satisfies the needs due to the growth in
population or traffic. These facts have generated two important issues.
First, a growing demand for construction aggregates and, second, an
increase in the amount of construction waste. Two billion tons of
aggregate are produced each year in the United States. Production is
expected to increase to more than 2.5 billion tons per year by the
year 2020. This has raised concerns about the availability of natural
aggregates and where we will find new aggregate sources. On the other
hand, the construction waste produced from building demolition alone
is estimated to be 123 million tons per year. Historically, the most
common method of managing this material has been through disposal
in landfills. As cost, environmental regulations and land use policies for
landfills become more restrictive, the need to seek alternative uses of the
waste material increases. This situation has led state agencies and the
aggregate industry to begin recycling concrete debris as an alternative
aggregate.
(FHWA 2004: 5–6)
Pavements with steel reinforcement may also be recycled, and equipment has
been developed to economically remove reinforcement and dowels without
the need for hand labor. Continuous steel or mesh is usually removed at
the demolition site, while dowels and tie bars may be removed at a plant
where the material is processed (ACPA 1993c). Any reinforcing steel in the
concrete has to be removed.
Existing concrete can be crushed and recycled into concrete pavement,
either as new concrete pavement or as a base or subbase course under
concrete pavement. Crushing and processing may occur at or very near
16 Introduction
to the construction site. The recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) offers a
number of advantages:
• reduces the need for virgin aggregates;
• reduces the volume of waste materials brought to landfills;
• reduces transportation costs as well as the number of trucks that must
maneuver in and out of the work zone, which can reduce project durations
as well as costs;
• residual cementitious properties as well as the angularity of crushed
concrete particles can enhance the stability and stiffness of a recycled
concrete base or subbase;
• when old concrete is crushed to a smaller size, susceptibility to Dcracking
is reduced.
There are also some risks and cautions associated with the re-use of existing
concrete:
• Existing concrete often has unknown properties. Construction debris
may contain unwanted bricks, wood, steel, ceramics, glass, or other
materials. As a result, some agencies only allow concrete from their
previous agency or DOT projects to be recycled for their new projects.
• Use of RCA in new concrete can create workability problems unless
the moisture content of the material is controlled.
• Some RCA needs to be washed before being used in new concrete,
which adds to cost.
• Fines in unwashed RCA may reduce concrete compressive strength.
• RCA generally has a higher absorption and lower specific gravity than
the original aggregate used in the concrete, due to the inclusion of
mortar made of cement, water, and air. It is best to keep stockpiles in
saturated surface dry (SSD) condition.
• When used as a base or subbase, the RCA should be kept wet to limit
dust and excess working should be avoided to prevent segregation. The
material should be compacted in a saturated condition.
• Concerns about leaching remain when RCA is used in a drainage layer
or near a water source.
The Federal Highway Administration Recycling Team performed a national
review of the state of the practice in Transportation Applications of Recycled
Concrete Aggregate. The study identified 41 states recycling concrete
aggregate, with 38 using it as aggregate base and 11 as an aggregate for PCC.
The report reviewed and summarized state practices in Texas, Virginia,
Michigan, Minnesota and California. Texas, Minnesota, and California
reported that RCA performed better than virgin aggregate as a base. One
value engineering proposal in Michigan saved $114,000 on a $3 million
Introduction 17
project through use of RCA. Michigan has also used recycled concrete
as backfill for edge-drains. Two developments that make the use of RCA
more attractive are the use of mobile crusher units that can be moved to
stockpiles of construction debris, and mobile units that crush pavement in
place into base or subbase material (FHWA 2004). The FHWA has established
a website at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/recycling/index.cfm
to provide information on recycling.
An important thing to remember is that concrete often fails for a reason.
If the concrete failed due to fatigue, there is little risk involved in recycling
the material. On the other hand, if the failure was due to a material-related
distress such as alkali-silica reaction (ASR), recycling the material into new
concrete simply sets the stage for a future failure. One cautionary tale
on the problems that can occur when crushed concrete is recycled in an
environment prone to sulfate attack is discussed in detail by Rollings et al.
(2006) and reviewed briefly in Chapter 5. It may be prudent to carefully
examine the existing concrete for ASR or D-cracking problems to determine
whether recycling is an option (ACPA 1993c).
When the concrete pavement has a thin asphalt overlay, it is possible
to crush the two together if it is to be used as a base or a subbase, but
not in new concrete. The asphalt in the material is not harmful, and it is
not necessary to mill off the overlay. Minnesota allows up to 3 percent
asphalt cement or approximately 50 percent reclaimed asphalt pavement
(RAP) in the crushed base material. California goes further and allows any
combination of RCA and RAP (FHWA 2004: 26).
The ACPA has published Recycling Concrete Pavement, Technical Bulletin
TB–014.P, which discusses concrete pavement recycling from old pavement
removal, to concrete crushing, to replacing the new pavement. The
bulletin covers critical aspects of mix design for RCA in fresh concrete. It
may be necessary to determine the optimum rate of recycled concrete fines
in the mixture, and to pay special attention to control of water content.
A guide specification is included in the Bulletin (ACPA 1993c).
Environmental impacts
Road and airport construction and the production of concrete and other
construction materials have environmental impacts. For the most part, the
impacts of development on the landscape are similar regardless of the pavement
type, with the exception of pervious pavements. Also, both asphalt and
concrete pavements require large quantities of aggregate, so their impact
through aggregate mining and production are similar.
The production of portland cement impacts the environment due to the
large amounts of energy required and the release of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Concrete production requires approximately 3.4 GJ per cubic meter