STATE OF THE ART:

Paving with roller compacted concrete

Externally vibrated dry concrete mix provides durable support for heavy wheel loads
BY OSWIN KEIFER JR. DIVISION MATERIALS AND PAVING ENGINEER U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS NORTH PACIFIC DIVISION PORTLAND, OREGON

oller compacted concrete (RCC) has had a lot of attention in the past several years because of its growing acceptance for use as mass concrete in dam construction. Howe ve r, a recent d e velopment is the increasing use of RCC as a comp a ra t i vely low cost, durable paving material to carry heavy loads. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has accepted it for aircraft parking aprons, taxiways and other pavements at military installations, and thus stimulated interest among all those concerned with pavement construction. Roller compacted concrete as used for pavements is a dry portland cement concrete material which is consolidated by external vibration using heavy vibratory rollers or similar equipment. It is normally dryer than a noslump consistency and must be stiff enough to support the compaction equipment. RCC for pavement construction is generally placed with an asphalt paver or similar equipment, modified to accommodate the stiff consistency of RCC and the thicker lifts used. The most obvious advantage of using RCC pavement is lower cost, achieved primarily by the use of lower cost equipment and fewer workers than with conventional concrete pavements. In some cases, lower cost aggregates can also contribute to the saving. The term RCC pavement is normally considered to refer to installations where the RCC is the wearing course, without any other applied surfacing.

Fort Lewis RCC test road surface. Close-up of the 34 -inch aggregate pavement at about 1 year, showing a nonraveled transverse crack. These cracks formed at 40- to 80-foot spacing throughout the road project.

roller compacted concrete used for pavements at the Yakima, Washington airport in 1941. Although the equipment was primitive by todays standards, and the mix design and control were likely less than perfect, that pavement has served well. It is still in use, with only a thin asphalt overlay added during 45 years of service.

How RCC pavement compares with treated bases and RCC for dams
Use of RCC for pavements evolved from the use of soil cement and cement treated base (CTB) courses. Although equipment for batching or feeding and mixing has developed from that used for the base courses, RCC for pavements requires better controls on proportioning. Also, a true paver or laydown machine is normally

BACKGROUND OF DEVELOPMENT
Construction technology similar to that of the RCC pavement has been available for many years in pavement base construction. There is even a record of true

Ends of a broken test beam from the Fort Hood, Texas tank stand (1984) show internal structure of the RCC pavement.

piggyback trailer parks, and it was decided to try RCC as a combined base and surfacing or total pavement. The attitude was: The RCC is performing so well. Why do we need the asphalt surfacing? This line of thinking led to construction in 1976 of a full RCC pavement for a log sort yard at Caycuse in the central part of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The forest products industry was then facing stiff environmental regulations which made it impractical to continue the common practice of sorting and yarding logs in the waters throughout the timberland. But dry-sort yards in that climate would immediately become huge mud holes unless surfaced. Since asphalt was impractical at many isolated sites, the decision was made to try RCC.

RCC paving procedures at Caycuse, British Columbia

used for placing and finishing the RCC pavement while less sophisticated placing and spreading equipment is often used for CTB or soil cement. The RCC pavement mix has considerably more cementitious material than CTB, and differs from most soil cement in that it contains coarse aggregate. The most important difference between RCC pavement and CTB or soil cement is that the RCC is designed to be a true portland cement concrete pavement with s t ru c t u ral strength at least comparable to that of conventional portland cement concrete, and often higher. The RCC pavement is also designed to have resistance to the abrasion of traffic, durability when exposed to severe weather, and a surface finish and straightedge tolerance satisfactory for the usual requirements of the traffic involved. RCC for pavements differs significantly from RCC for dams, which is simply a form of low-cement-content mass concrete. The RCC pavement mixes have a much higher cement and paste content and much smaller coarse aggregate. Typical cementitious material contents (cement plus poz zolan) range from 500 to 550 pounds per cubic yard, and the maximum size of coarse aggregate is usually near 34 inch. These factors along with a different approach to mix design produce a much more workable mix than that used for dams, although it is still a no-slump mix, stiff enough to support vibratory rollers. The log sort yard at Caycuse, built in the fall of 1976, included 4 acres of 14-inch-thick RCC pavement placed in a two-lift operation on a 6-inch crushed rock base. Five more acres were added in 1979. A local pit-run sand-gravel with maximum size about 34 inch was used. The 8-inch bottom lift had an 8-percent cement content, and the 6-inch top lift was made with 12 percent cement (about 5.1 sacks per cubic yard). Construction equipment and procedures at Caycuse were similar to those used on later jobs. An easily transportable continuous type mixing plant, one which could be erected in about 2 days, was set up near the construction site. The mixing was done in a twin-screw pug mill. Aggregate was fed to the mixer with a belt conveyor having volumetric (gate) controls on the feed to the belt. Cement was fed from a silo onto the ribbon of aggregate on the belt by means of a vane feeder. Water was metered and fed to the mixer through a spray bar. A second belt conveyor picked up mixed RCC from the discharge of the pug mill and elevated it to the truck loading point. A small gated transfer hopper located at the end of the conveyor reduced segregation at the conveyor discharge and allowed trucks to change without stopping the plant. Trucks hauled the concrete to the placing site and dumped into the hopper of a conventional self-propelled asphalt paver. The paver spread the RCC to a uniform lift meeting the desired line and grade with a finished surface ready for compaction with heavy steel-wheel vibratory rollers. Usually the vibratory rollers were followed by ru b b e r- t i red rollers and then a final pass of a non-vibratory steel-wheel roller. A small amount of compaction was provided by vibrating screeds on the paver. The paver could be electronically controlled from a string line or ski operating on the adjacent paved lane. More commonly manual controls were used. An allowance of about 10 to 15 percent extra depth was made to cover compaction during rolling. Curing, commonly provided by sprinklers attached to a pipe irrigation system, usually continued for 14 days.

EARLY APPLICATIONS IN CANADA

Although the United States was making slow progress in the seventies with RCC dams, only one small RCC test pavement section (12x105 feet) was installed at the U.S. Army Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1975. Howe ve r, engineers and contractors in British Columbia, Canada were having excellent results using RCC pavement as a base with a thin wearing surface of asphaltic concrete for building heavy-duty pavements for dockside storage areas. The material proved particularly appropriate for containerization yards and

Since the conventional asphalt pavers available could handle only about 10 inches in an RCC lift, anything thicker had to be two-course construction. The specified sequence of two-course construction re q u i re d placing the second course within an hour of the first, but with no treatment of the surface of the first lift. Each lane of pavement was placed immediately adjacent to the previous lane, with the longitudinal construction joint formed by leaving a 12- to 18-inch unrolled strip at the edge of the preceding lane and rolling it after the succeeding lane had been placed in contact with it. If the operation was shut down overnight, the edge of the last lane was cut back to a vertical face with a motor grader or similar equipment and then the new lane butted up against this face the next day. No transverse joints were formed; the pavement was simply allowed to crack as shrinkage occurred. The transverse cracks did form, reasonably straight across the pavement, from 40 to 70 feet apart.

Performance record at Caycuse

When we inspected these pavements in December 1983, and again a year later, the Caycuse pavements were in excellent condition in spite of severe service conditions. The larger log stackers apply up to 240,000pound loads on two-wheel axles, and off-road trucks bringing in logs have a gross weight of 120 tons. In addition, the pavement is subjected to intense abrasion as logs are pushed across the surface. Almost no structural problems were found, and the surface was in excellent condition. There were few open longitudinal construction joints. Many transverse cracks were tight; most were 1 16 to 18 inch wide, with a few up to 38 inch. No attempt had been made to seal the cracks or otherwise work on them, but there was no sign of offsetting or raveling, and the cracks were causing no problems. This pavement is in an area with numerous cycles of f re ezing and thawing, although winter tempera t u re s seldom go below +20 degrees F. There was no evidence whatever of any freeze-thaw deterioration even though, like other RCC pavements, the Caycuse pavement concrete is not air entrained. Cores taken from the pavement had compressive strengths from 3000 to 5000 psi, with most of the results bunched in the 4000- to 4200psi range. Since 1976 other similar RCC pavements have been built in western British Columbia for log sort yards and dock areas, using essentially similar construction procedures and with similar good results and service records. Some projects have used only portland cement, but more commonly a mixture of 25 percent fly ash and 75 percent portland cement has been used.

Dawson Creek, beginning point of the Alcan Highway in northeast British Columbia. Along with the road there was also a 6-acre load-out at the railhead, built in the late fall of 1983 over extremely poor subgrade. The load-out area has 7 inches of RCC with no other surfacing. The road612 inches of RCC plus 112 inches asphalt surfacingwas designed with no base course, but in many areas of poorest subgrade the contractor put down a granular base as a working platform. The RCC mix had 12 percent cementitious material by weight, half portland cement and half natural pozzolan from a local source. It was designed for a flexural strength of 450 psi at 56 days. Two pavers operated in echelon, one about 150 feet behind the other in the adjoining lane. Curing was by water truck for the first few hours, followed by an application of asphalt emulsion. Much of the RCC froze hard the night after it was placed. We inspected this work in the summer of 1985 because of great interest in the durability of RCC pavement in extremely severe climate. The asphalt surfacing on the road has deteriorated considerably, but the RCC has performed very well, with the only distress spots showing where subgrade support was extremely poor. In the load-out area where the RCC is exposed without other surfacing, it seemed to be in perfect condition, showing no sign of freeze-thaw deterioration. The road is used by 7-axle coal trucks with a gross weight of 80 tons, operating 24 hours per day year round.

EXPERIENCE IN THE UNITED STATES

Meanwhile, use of RCC pavement began in the United States, at first only by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 1983 a small area of RCC pavement was placed on a tank road at Fort Stewart, Georgia by the Waterways Experiment Station, using troop labor from the post. Although the road was placed in an area of poor subgrade using rather primitive paving methods, the users have been most pleased with the finished product.

Tank area built at Fort Hood

The first significant RCC pavement in the United States was constructed at Fort Hood, Texas by the Fort Worth District of the Corps of Engineers, aided by the Waterways Experiment Station, in August 1984. This was a large parking area for tanks and other tracked vehicles surrounding a maintenance shop. An 18,000-squareyard area of 10-inch pavement was placed in one lift, at a cost of about $58 per cubic yard in place. The RCC mix contained 300 pounds of portland cement and 160 pounds of fly ash per cubic yard. Most of the RCC contained 112-inch maximum size aggregate, graded to ASTM C 33 specification, with separate fine aggregate. This aggregate size did pose some problems. There was a tendency toward segregation during handling, and the surface finish was not as good as had been obtained with smaller aggregates. A small area was made with 3/4-inch maximum aggregate, and this mix handled much better.

RCC installed in severe climate area

The first major RCC pavement built in a really severe climate was an 11-mile haul road from the Bull Moose Coal Mine to a railhead at Tumbler Ridge, the newest town in Canada. This is about 75 miles southwest of

RCC MIXES FOR FORT LEWIS TEST ROAD, PER CUBIC YARD
Material/property Portland cement Fly ash Mix A 350 pounds 180 pounds (Class F) 1935 pounds, 3 4-inch gravel 1560 pounds 168 pounds (20.3 gallons) 600 psi Mix B 520 pounds

Coarse aggregate

3500 pounds, 8-inch, crushed 203 pounds (24.5 gallons) 800 psi

Sand Water

Vibratory roller was the only compaction equipment needed following the paver at Portland Airport. Specifications required rolling to begin within 10 minutes of placement and to be completed within 60 minutes from start of mixing at the plant. Weather was also a problem at Fort Hood. A temperature of 100 degrees F with the wind blowing made it difficult to prevent excessive drying of the surface. Originally it was planned to saw joints similar to those in conventional concrete pavements; this proved impractical and the pavement was left unjointed. In spite of difficulties, beams sawed from the pavement tested at 800 to 900 psi, well above the specified flexural strength of 650 psi.

28-day flexural strength 90-day flexural strength

690 psi

960 psi

Test road built at Fort Lewis

Interest in RCC pavement is really booming in the Pacific No rt h west, in part because of information coming in from British Columbia. The Seattle District of the Corps of Engineers built the first RCC pavement in this area in October 1984. During construction of this test road at Fort Lewis, Washington, many visitors from surrounding areas came to observe, and afterward a lively interest in RCC pavements developed in the commercial field. The Fort Lewis test road was 23 feet wide, 700 feet long, and 812 inches thick. It was constructed in a portion of a well-used gravel road from which 812 inches of surfacing and base had been removed so the finish grade of the RCC would match the former surface grade. Se ve ra l variables were tried during this construction so that their effectiveness could be compared. The road was built in two lanes and on two different days so that there would be cold construction joints, both longitudinal and t ra n s ve r s e. Two different mixes were used (see table). Mix A, used for about two-thirds of the test road, included portland cement, fly ash and natural gravel. Mix B, used for the other third of the work, had only portland cement and a crushed 58-inch maximum size aggre-

gatean asphaltic concrete aggregate used by the Washington Department of Transportation, with 7 to 10 percent passing the No. 200 sieve. The proportioning (feeding) and mixing equipment were essentially the same as that used in British Columbia (described on page 291), but two aggre g a t e feeds were needed for Mix A because it had both coarse and fine aggregate. Transporting, paving and rolling practices were also like those used in British Columbia. The number of passes with the rubber-tired roller was varied to study the effect. The general opinion was that two passes helped tighten up the surface, but more passes tended to degrade it. The 34-inch gravel mix (Mix A) placed and finished well, although the 58- i n c h crushed asphalt aggregate mix was even easier to handle and finish. Both mixes consistently produced RCC surfaces to an a ve rage 316-inch tolerance when measured transversely with a 10-foot straightedge. Transverse cracks developed at 50- to 80-foot spacings. Early strength tests on beams sawed from the pavement showed Mix B (no fly ash) 30 to 40 percent stronger than Mix A (see table).

New paver at Port of Tacoma freight yard

Early in the spring of 1985, the Port of Tacoma, Washington began building the first of three freight handling areas along trackage at the docks, each having 35,000 to 50,000 square yards of 12- to 17-inch RCC pavement. These paved areas are designed for storage of large freight containers, parking of piggyback trailers, and for the operation of piggy-packer straddle cranes with axle loads of 205,000 pounds, which handle the freight containers. The RCC mix was designed with 450 pounds of port-

land cement, 100 pounds of fly ash and the same 58-inch crushed aggregate used in the Fort Lewis test section. On the first area, the low bidders price was $1,764,000 for RCC, compared with $2,275,000 for a conventional portland cement concrete option. The first two RCC projects at the Tacoma docks were built with equipment similar to that previously described, but on the third project a German paver new to this country was used. The machine is similar to American asphalt pavers, but heavier duty, capable of laying an RCC lift of 12-inch compacted thickness. It was equipped with two tamping screeds which can compact the material to 94 to 95 percent of modified Proctor density as it comes out of the paver. Thus the single roller following did little additional compaction, causing almost no settlement of the pavement surfacea great advantage in maintaining finish tolerances.

STRENGTH, DURABILITY SUGGEST WIDER USE OF RCC PAVEMENT

A 1985 survey by the Portland Cement Association showed more than 283,000 square yards of completed roller compacted concrete pavement in the United States. The Seattle District of the Corps of Engineers now has under contract at Fort Lewis the construction of a parking area for tracked vehicles around a maintenance shop. This job involves 16,000 square yards of 812- inch RCC pavement with a mix similar to the 58-inch crushed aggregate mix used at Fort Lewis (Mix B. in table). At least 12 additional projects are under active consideration in the U. S.

Durability of RCC pavements

One quality that was of concern when RCC was first considered for pavement use was its durability when exposed to freeze-thaw conditions. This concern led to investigation of the RCC pavements in British Columbia at Caycuse with years of freeze-thaw cycle exposure, and at Tumbler Ridge where extreme cold conditions are common. Nothing thus far has shown the RCC to have any problems with freeze-thaw durability in service. The Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station and Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory have been doing laboratory studies to determine what qualities the RCC material has that would protect it from freeze-thaw damage. No one has reported being able to get air-entraining agents to work with RCC materials, but there is speculation that entrapped air voids in the in-place RCC may lend some measure of durability to it.

RCC at Portland International Airport

Early in 1985, the Port of Portland, Oregon invited bids for construction of 41,000 square yards of aircraft parking apron for 747 jumbo jets at Portland International Airport. Because of long term loading conditions, both portland cement concrete and RCC were considered as alternatives to asphalt concrete. The plans and specifications were prepared for RCC and asphalt concrete alternatives. When the bids came in, port officials selected the cheaper RCC alternative, which was almost 25 percent below the lowest asphalt bid. Total cost of the RCC was $40.73 per cubic yard in place. The 14-inch pavement was placed in two lifts on 4 to 6 inches of granular base. The mix consisted of 488 pounds portland cement 119 pounds fly ash 260 pounds water 3256 pounds 34-inch-maximum aggregate per cubic yard. The aggregate was a modified Oregon State Highway gradation, crushed material with 5 to 10 percent passing the No. 200 sieve. The water-(cement + p oz zolan) ratio was 0.43. The two equal lifts were placed with a paver similar to the one used at Tacoma. The rectangular apron was paved longitudinally in widths varying from 18 to 24 feet. Each longitudinal lane was divided into three sections so that the paver could get back to the beginning of the lane being paved to start placing the top lift before the bottom lift was over 60 minutes old, as required by the specifications. The single paver with vibrating screed was followed by a single vibratory roller. The specifications called for burlap curing mats and fog spray 24 hours per day for 7 days. Curing compounds were not permitted as an alternate.

Good strengths; expanded use predicted

Structural design for RCC pavements has thus far been similar to that used for conventional pavement, based on the strength attained in the RCC. We do not expect that this will change. The RCC pavements tend generally to have higher flexural strengths than conventional concrete pavements. The test project at Fort Lewis showed that the RCC had about 100 psi higher flexural strength than conventional concrete with the same cement content at 14, 28 and 90 days. This may be due to both the lower water-cement ratio and the high degree of consolidation for RCC. Originally, RCC was considered only for such uses as slow speed pavements, parking lots and roads for tracked vehicles. Howe ve r, recent uses have begun to indicate that it may be suitable for higher quality, higher speed pavements.

PUBLICATION #C860287
Copyright 1986, The Aberdeen Group All rights reserved