Concrete Pavement Reporter E-News Archive
July-September 2006
CP Road Map Program
The CP Road Map long-term concrete pavement research program will soon be getting underway. The CP Road Map plan, published by the FHWA in September 2005, was developed through a major broad stakeholder planning effort. The FHWA recently awarded a contract to the CP Tech Center to provide administrative support services for the program, which promises to bring together public and private stakeholders to coordinate research in priority areas and accelerate implementation of promising results. An Executive Advisory Committee representing public- and private-sector stakeholders will be established in the coming months.
Status of Selected Ongoing Projects
Phase I of the multi-part Concrete Pavement Surface Characteristics Project is complete. This phase, sponsored by the FHWA, resulted in a strategic plan for research and an evaluation of current methods for controlling tire-pavement noise. Phase II, field evaluation of conventional textures, is near completion. The Phase III pooled fund study, long-term field monitoring and advancement of innovative solutions for desired surface characteristics, will be getting underway soon. Visit www.cptechcenter.org for more details.
The Integration of Materials and Construction Practices Manual is nearly through final approval before being printed and distributed. The CP Tech Center is now developing a workshop based on the manual that will include practical, user-friendly training modules and technical notes.
Self-Consolidating Concrete for Slip-Form Paving Applications: Videos of the new slip-form SCC being successfully placed in the field are available at http://www.cptechcenter.org/projects/scc/. Participants are needed for Phase II of the project (visit http://www.pooledfund.org/ for more details).
Recent Research Results
Real-Time Pavement Thickness Measurement, a project sponsored by the Iowa Highway Research Board (TR-538), identified and evaluated innovative and efficient approaches to quality assurance for concrete pavements. Two approaches were found viable for measuring concrete pavement thickness during the paving operation: laser scanning and electromagnetic eddy current sensors. Laser scanning has proved to be a reliable technique in terms of its ability to provide virtual core thickness and its low variability. Electromagnetic sensors are more economical than laser scanning and can be implemented in a handheld device or fixed behind the paver. A nondestructive evaluation device that measures pavement thickness in real time will eliminate the need for state DOTs to assess thickness by taking cores after the paving process in complete and then patching the resulting holes.
