Purpose and Background

Concrete pavements may be used in a variety of applications including highways, streets, and parking lots. By using suitable design techniques and appropriate details a designer can develop an economic and sustainable concrete pavement cross section that will perform for many years.

This seminar will provide instruction on how to design and detail concrete pavements used in highways, streets, and parking lots by considering the traffic loads, soil conditions, and resulting pavement stresses. In addition to designing conventional concrete pavements, this seminar will provide introductions to innovative products such as pervious concrete, concrete overlays and roller compacted concrete.

Concrete thickness design will be presented from multiple design methodologies which includes both empirical and mechanistic-empirical procedures. Discussions of subgrade characterization and improvement as well as pavement jointing will also be provided. Concrete materials will be presented including discussions on strength, workability and durability. Additional detail will be provided on economic life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) and environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) of concrete pavements. Typical construction techniques for conventional concrete pavements and overlay as well as the unique techniques used for pervious and roller compacted concrete will be reviewed. Development and application of materials and construction specifications and the related quality control and acceptance tests will be highlighted in terms of meeting the design objectives.

This course is intended for civil engineers, geotechnical engineers, and public works officials involved in the design and layout of concrete highways, streets, and parking areas. Participants will leave the course with a better understanding of the analytical process used to achieve an optimized concrete pavement cross section that will perform as intended over the design life.

Seminar Benefits

• Learn about the latest approaches to concrete pavement design including conventional concrete, overlays, roller compacted concrete and pervious concrete.
• Recognize the various methods used to measure soil strength for design
• Understand how to convert mixed traffic into formats required for design
• Learn how reliability is used in design
• Recognize when subbases, steel dowel bars, tie bars, and joint sealing are needed
• Optimize joint spacing to minimize slab cracking
• Compare pavement cross sections using life cycle economics and environmental assessment

• Understand the theoretical basis of empirical and mechanistic-empirical pavement design methods
• Recognize the subgrade soil strength and traffic input requirements for design
• Be aware of economic and environmental analysis techniques to be used for cross section comparisons
• Perform a detailed pavement design using multiple methods for conventional concrete, overlays, roller compacted concrete and pervious concrete.
• Learn the typical construction methods for concrete pavements
  Understand how to specify concrete for different pavement applications

Assessment of Learning Outcomes

Students will develop three separate pavement designs using the methods described in the class.

Who Should Attend?

This course is intended for civil engineers, geotechnical engineers, and public works officials involved in the design and layout of concrete highways, streets, and parking areas.

Course Outline

TIME: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

DAY 1

Pavement Design Basics

• Concrete pavement distress types
• Load and environmental stress development
• Difference between empirical and mechanistic-empirical methods
• Introduction to pavement design methods and software

Design Inputs

• Subgrade characterization and improvement
• Subbases
• Traffic analysis
• Concrete material properties
• Reliability

Introduction to Innovative Materials

• Pervious concrete
• Roller-compacted concrete
• Concrete overlays

Economic and Environmental Assessments

• Life cycle cost analysis (LCCA)
• Life cycle assessments (LCA)

DAY 2

Design Details

• Edge conditions (shoulders, curbs, gutters, widened lanes)
• Intersections and pavement junctions
• Joints
• Joint types (contraction, construction, isolation)
• To seal or not to seal?
• Load transfer
• Saw cuts

Construction Techniques

• Conventional Concrete and Overlays
• Pervious Concrete
• Roller Compacted Concrete

Design Considerations for Pavement Production and Construction

• Specification development
• Testing and inspection
• Certifications

Maintenance and Rehabilitation Activities

• Crack sealing
• Partial and full depth repair
• Diamond grinding
• Joint and load transfer restoration
• Undersealing

Pavement Design Student Projects

• AASHTO
• ACPA StreetPave
• NRMCA Concrete Pavement Analyst

Discounted hotel rooms are available on a first-come, first-served basis. See discount deadline and rates below.