Design Aspects of Modern Cement Concrete Pavements in India

There is an increasing trend for using concrete pavement all over the world because of its ability to handle complex loading and environmental conditions that occur in highways. Finite element method is the best tool for analysis of the pavement slab. The pavement slab deteriorates under combined action of axle loads and temperature differential across the depth of slab. The present study illustrates a case study for thickness design and describes the different parameters associated with the design of rigid pavement for a National Highway in Punjab State using tied concrete shoulders. The possibility of bottom-up and top-down cracking was considered. The effect of moisture variations on the development of warping stresses is ignored. The thickness of a pavement slab reduces by about 30 percent if there is a tied concrete shoulder or when the slab has a widened outer lane.