
Guide to Concrete Overlay Solutions
This guide provides the key elements of the six major types of concrete overlays along with specifics on materials, typical sections, and important construction elements.
Full guide
Download the complete, 32-page Guide to Concrete Overlay Solutions (9.6 mb *pdf), published in January 2007.
2-page summaries
2-page summaries provide quick-and-dirty overviews of 6 kinds of overlay solutions. The summaries can help you
- Decide if an existing pavement is a good candidate for overlay.
- Determine the most appropriate overlay solution for an existing pavement.
- Understand basic designs for thickness, mixture, joints, and drainage.
- Prepare the existing pavement surface adequately.
- Accommodate special construction considerations.
| Bonded overlays | Unbonded overlays | |
|---|---|---|
| Generally used to eliminate surface distress when the pavement is in good structural condition. | Generally highly reliable, with longer design life than rehabilitation with asphalt. | |
| On concrete pavements |
|
![]() 2-page summary: unbonded on concrete 3.2 mb *pdf |
| On asphalt pavements | ![]() 2-page summary: bonded on asphalt 703 kb *pdf |
![]() 2-page summary: unbonded on asphalt 700 kb *pdf |
| On composite pavements | ![]() 2-page summary: bonded on composite 724 kb *pdf |
![]() 2-page summary: unbonded on composite 802 kb *pdf |
* To view pdf files, you may need to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.






