Civil Engineering Department

College of Engineering
KAAF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

__________________________________

Highway Engineering 1 CIV 368

Lecture 6_Road and Pavement Maintenance
Kwasi Agyeman Boakye ( kwasi.agyeman.boakye@gmail.com)

Need for Maintenance

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The rate of pavement deterioration is directly affected by the standards of maintenance applied to repair defects on the pavement surface such as cracking, ravelling, potholes, etc., or to preserve the structural integrity of the pavement (for example, surface treatments, overlays, etc.), thereby permitting the road to carry traffic in accordance with its design function.

The figure below illustrates the predicted trend in pavement performance represented by the riding quality that is often measured in terms of the international roughness index (IRI). When a maintenance standard is defined, it imposes a limit to the level of deterioration that a pavement is permitted to attain.
Poor

Maintenance Standard

Roughness

Pavement Performance Curve Rehabilitation

Good

Time (years) or Traffic Loading

Types of maintenance activities

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Road maintenance activities can be categorized into 2 main types; Routine and Periodic maintenance activities. Routine Maintenance This is the work that is performed as needed throughout the year. It is the day to day maintenance of the road. Routine maintenance is carried out on the road once or more times per year. It aims to prevent degradation of the road service level by maintaining the road surface condition, and ensuring that the pavement does not weaken. Routine maintenance activities may be either; - Cyclic Work Activities: Activities undertaken on a regular basis at a frequency which does not depend on the character of the road or the amount of traffic but rather depends on the climatic conditions. eg. grass cutting and desilting. - Recurrent Work Activities: Activities undertaken on a regular basis but at a frequency which is dependent on the engineering and traffic characteristics of the particular road.eg. Pothole patching and edge repair.

Types of maintenance activities

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Periodic Maintenance Periodic maintenance is the type of maintenance work that is only required over a long time interval, usually a number of years. Roads deteriorate due to the actions of weather and traffic. The rate of deterioration depends mainly on the type and quantity of traffic, the weather and the amount and effectiveness of routine maintenance given to the road. Periodic maintenance activities are expensive and the objective is to extend the time interval between periodic maintenance by means of good routine maintenance. For example if the time interval between reseals can be extended from (say) 6 years to 8 years by effective routine maintenance the cost savings are substantial. Periodic Maintenance activities are undertaken also to preserve the structural integrity of the road. It may include those activities that change the geometry of a road by widening or realignment. eg Resealing , Rehabilitation.

Periodic maintenance should be carried out once the road surface condition has deteriorated to a level that is difficult or expensive to rectify by routine maintenance.
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Inventory and Condition Survey

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Before maintenance activities are carried out it is important that the current nature and condition of the road is known. This requires road network inventory and condition survey. Road Inventory Road inventory is a set of information about the basic engineering and traffic characteristics of the road network. It defines the key features of each section of road and indicates the level of traffic use. This information is an essential reference source for the subsequent stages of inspection and analysis. The content of the inventory should be directly relevant to maintenance management. When it is first drawn up, it should be as simple as possible and need contain information only on the following items: type of surface and construction (carriageway and shoulders), cross-section width, (carriageway and shoulders), traffic volume (annual average daily traffic ,numbers of vehicles per day).

As the inventory is built up, information on the following items can be added: structures, pipe culverts, box culverts, bridges, junctions location, road furniture (road signs, road markings, guard rails).
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Inventory and Condition Survey

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There are three useful ways of presenting the information recorded in the inventory: diagrammatic maps strip maps card index systems.

Strip map

Diagrammatic map

Inventory and Condition Survey

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Road Condition Survey They are similar to inventory procedures, but their emphasis is on the condition of the road rather than its basic characteristics. They identify locations where deterioration is occurring, measure the extent of the problem and define the action needed to put matters right.

Whatever the level of the survey the main objectives of RCS include; - An assessment of the general condition of the road network; - Identification of sections or sub-sections of the road network which are in critical condition and those requiring maintenance or structural overlay within the near future. - Detects the defects on the roads and locate sections where severe damage has or is occurring which need immediate maintenance action. - Identify the type and condition of drainage and other structures (shoulders, drainage structures, culverts, side ditches, etc.) - Gives estimates of work quantities for the award of tender.

Road Distresses
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Road distresses occur in different forms and can be identified for unpaved and paved roads. Some of the distresses are illustrated in the table below.
DEFECTS IN BITUMINOUS
SURFACED PAVEMENT

DEFECTS IN RIGID
PAVEMENTS Longitudinal Cracking

DEFECTS IN GRAVELED
SURFACES Gravel Thickness

SURFACES
Alligator Cracking

Depressions
Rutting

Transverse Cracking
Faulting

Loose Gravel
Dust

Bleeding
Raveling

Spalling
Blow-Up

Potholes
Corrugations

Transverse Cracking
Longitudinal Cracking

Pumping
Scaling

Rutting
Depressions

Edge Cracking
Lane Shoulder Drop Off

Depression

Erosion Gullies
Slippery Or Rocky Surface

Patching Potholes

Vegetation Encroachment
Soft Spot
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Road Distresses
Cracks
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Cracks are common defects that occur mostly on flexible and rigid pavements. They appear as small fissures in the road surface. They could occur as alligator cracks, longitudinal cracks or transverse cracks. Alligator Cracks: Alligator cracking is a series of interconnecting cracks caused by fatigue failure of the pavement under repeated traffic loading. The cracks initiate at the bottom of the surface and propagate to the surface, initially as one or more longitudinal parallel cracks. After repeated traffic loading, the cracks interconnect, forming many-sided, sharp angled pieces that resemble chicken wire or the skin of an alligator. In concrete pavements contraction and expansion of the concrete slab could also lead to cracking.

Alligator Cracks

Road Distresses
Cracks
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Transverse Cracks: Transverse cracks run perpendicular to the direction of traffic flow. They could be caused by a reflection of a shrinkage crack or joint in an underlying base (commonly portland cement concrete or cemented materials). It can also be caused by construction joint or shrinkage crack (due to low temperature or bitumen hardening) in asphalt surfacing. Structural failure of Portland cement concrete base can also lead to transverse cracks. Longitudinal Cracks: These are cracks that occur parallel to the direction of traffic flow. Cracks can be relatively short in length or run the entire pavement section length. Longitudinal cracks can be caused by a poorly constructed paving lane joint, shrinkage of the asphalt surface due to temperature cycling, or reflection from cracking beneath the surface course.

Transverse Cracks

Longitudinal Cracks

Road Distresses
Depressions and Ruts
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Depressions: They are localised pavement surface areas with elevations than those of the surrounding pavement. In many instances, light depressions are not noticeable until a rain, when water creates a small pond. On dry pavement, depressions can be spotted by looking for stains caused by ponding water. Depressions are created by settlement of the foundation soil or are the result of improper compaction during construction. Ruts: Rutting is characterised by longitudinal depressions in the pavement surface that occur in the wheel paths of a roadway. Rutting may be caused by poor mix stability, excessive bitumen in the mix, and repetitive loading on poorly compacted mix.

Depression

Ruts

Road Distresses
Bleeding and Ravelling
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Bleeding: Flushing, or bleeding, is a film of bituminous material on the pavement surface which creates a shiny, glass excessive amounts of asphalt cement in the mix and/or low air void content. It occurs when asphalt fills the voids of the mix during hot weather and then expands into the pavement surface. Ravelling: Ravelling (also known as weathering) is the wearing away of the pavement surface caused by the dislodging (ravelling) of aggregate particles and loss of asphalt binder. This generally indicates that the asphalt binder has hardened significantly. Removal of the coarse aggregate of a sprayed seal leaving the binder exposed to tyre contact can happen as the loss of individual stones, or as the complete loss of stone in a localised area.

Bleeding

Ravelling

Road Distresses
Faulting and Spalling
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Faulting: This is a differential vertical displacement oftentimes at joints and cracks between abutting slabs resulting in step deformation. It is usually found in concrete pavements and can be caused by differential settlement of adjoining slabs. Also loss of sub-base material through pumping can lead to this. Poor sub-base or sub-grade support is also a possible cause. Bleeding

Spalling: This is the breaking of angular pieces of concrete material from the edges of cracks, joints, and corners of the concrete slab or the flaky breakage of material from the surface of the slab.

Spalling

Road Distresses
Pumping and Blow-Up
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Pumping: This is a process by which a mixture of water, clay and fine-grained soil is pumped out or exudes from underneath a rigid pavement slab through cracks, joints and the edges as the slab is repeatedly caused to deflect downwards by passing vehicles.

Blow-Up: This is a localized upward movement of rigid pavement slabs, which occurs at a transverse joint or crack. The occurrence of the defect is mostly accompanied by transverse edge shattering. Blow-ups may be caused by excessive expansion of rigid slabs under hot weather conditions or inadequate provision for expansion joints between slabs.

Pumping

Blow - Up

PAVEMENT MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

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Pavement maintenance management is the process of planning the maintenance and repair of a network of roadways, in order to optimize pavement conditions over the entire network. It incorporates life cycle costs into a more systematic approach to minor and major road maintenance and reconstruction projects. A pavement maintenance management system (PMMS) is a planning tool used to aid pavement management decisions. It is a computer program that models pavement and surface deterioration due to traffic and weather, and recommends maintenance and repairs to the roads surface based on various tests. These tests can be simply visual or employ special software and databases to provide rankings for roads or road sections. Typical tasks performed by pavement management systems include: Inventory pavement conditions, identifying good, fair and poor pavements. Assign importance ratings for road segments, based on traffic volumes, road functional class, and community demand. Schedule maintenance of good roads to keep them in good condition. Schedule repairs of poor and fair pavements as remaining available funding allows. In Ghana the tool used for PMMS is known as the Pavement Maintenance Management Programme (PMMS).

PAVEMENT MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME

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The PMMP is a network level tool to collect, store and analyze all relevant data for road management to assist in decision making. This tool is an integral part of GHAs RMMS to assist in finding optimum strategies for the planning and budgeting of road works. The PMMP requires two main sets of data; Road Monitoring scheme data and Road Traffic data. The following are required to establish the road monitoring scheme data; Establishment of a location reference system and road inventory Division of the road network into homogenous sections and subsections Unique section identification system, coding or numbering system comprising road, section and subsection numbers A standardised system of data collection The PMMP takes the data and processes it for prioritization of maintenance operations, budgetary allocations and interfacing with other softwares (ARCGIS and HDM-IV).

PAVEMENT MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME

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