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Distresses in Flexible Pavements

The document discusses various types of distresses that can occur in flexible pavements such as slippage cracking, fatigue cracking, potholes, raveling, rutting, patching, corrugation, shoving, delamination, checking, bitumen bleeding, and pumping. It describes the characteristics, root causes, failure mechanisms, and repair methods for each type of distress. The distresses can result from factors like poor construction, material quality issues, traffic loads, moisture, and lack of drainage.

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Qadir Ullah
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
32 views33 pages

Distresses in Flexible Pavements

The document discusses various types of distresses that can occur in flexible pavements such as slippage cracking, fatigue cracking, potholes, raveling, rutting, patching, corrugation, shoving, delamination, checking, bitumen bleeding, and pumping. It describes the characteristics, root causes, failure mechanisms, and repair methods for each type of distress. The distresses can result from factors like poor construction, material quality issues, traffic loads, moisture, and lack of drainage.

Uploaded by

Qadir Ullah
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Distresses in Flexible

Pavements
By Dr. Fazli Karim
[email protected]
Slippage Cracking

Description

 The slippage cracking


is a Crescent or half-
moon shaped cracks
generally having two
ends
 Particularly produced
in aaccelerating,
Decelerating and
Turning zone
Root Causes Pavement Structure

 The slippage cracks are


usually caused by poor
interlayer bonding due
to dust, moisture, type
and lack of tack coat ,
rubber, dirt or other
non-adhesive materials
between the two
courses .
 lack of compaction
during construction .
 Thin Layers
 Insufficient/too much tack
coat
 Tracking of tack coat with
equipment
 Contamination – sand, dirt,
organics
Failure Mechanism/Slip Analysis
Failure Mechanism/ slip analysis
Repairs

Patching
The best remedy for slippage
cracking is to remove and
replace the effected area of
pavement with plant mixed
asphalt material.
A patch always represents a
point of weakness
Long-Lasting Patch?

04 Points to be remembered

 Stepping to avoid
water penetration and
develop strong shear
key
 Adequate tack coating
 Surface seal at joint
 Compaction
Specification limits for Patch/Overlay?

 T(min)= 2.5(M.A.S)-Marshall
 T(min)= 3(N.M.A.S)-
Superpave
 T(max)=120 mm
 If T= 25mm- No-due to heat
loss
Tack Coat applications rate
Asphalt Pre-Placement requirement

Trucks used for transport of HMA have to be


well insulated and covered to maintain
required temperature
The journey must not be too long in order to
avoid segregation and bitumen drainage to
the bottom of truck
Fall height should be as minimum as possible
Cellulose fibers may be added to mix to avoid
bitumen drainage
Fatigue (Alligator) Cracking

Series of interconnected cracks


caused by the fatigue failure of
the HMA surface under
repeated/cyclic loading.
Hair line cracks
Fatigue cracks
Alligator Cracks
Root Causes

 Cyclic loading
 Freeze/Thaw cycles
 Age Hardening asphalt
 In most of cases, the
alligator cracking is caused
by the excessive deflection
of HMA over unstable
subgrade or any other
unstable lower layer of the
pavement.
Repair
Fatigue crack repair generally falls into one of
two categories:
Small, localized fatigue cracking- Patching
Large fatigue cracked areas- Functional or
structural overlay
Cures for fatigue cracking
Design for actual number of cyclic and heavy
loads.
Keep subgrade dry (low deflections).
Use thicker pavements.
Use non-moisture susceptible materials
Use paving materials that are resilient.
Adequate compaction during construction.
Potholes (chuck hole)
Pothole is a type of disruption
in the surface of a pavement
where a portion of the road
materials has broken away and
leaving a hole. Potholes usually
appear in the form of small
bowl-shaped depressions or
holes of various sizes in the
pavement surface resulting
from localized disintegration.
Possible Causes
 Too little asphalt, too thin HMA, too many fines,
too few fines,
 Poor drainage,
 These chunks of pavements between fatigue
cracks are worked loose and may eventually be
picked out/dislodged of the surface by continued
wheel loads when the vehicles drive over them,
 when water freezes it expands and thus puts
more stress on cracked pavement. so its severity
increases,
 If a pothole fills with water, water washes away
loose particles from the walls of the potholes as
vehicles pass through it so its severity increases
Ravelling

 The progressive disintegration and


subsequent loss of the asphalt
surface and progressing downward
or from the edges inward as a
result of the dislodgement of
aggregate particles.
 Usually the fine aggregate first
comes out from the asphalt mix
leaving a little pock marks on the
pavement surface. As the
pavement is subjected to loading,
the erosion continues and thus the
larger particles are also dislodged.
so the pavement surface becomes
rough
Possible Causes
Loss of bond between aggregate particles and the asphalt binder as a
result of:
 Too little and improper asphalt/binder in the mix.
 Overheating of the asphalt mix
 Any debris or dust coating on the aggregate particles that forces the
asphalt binder to bond with the dust rather than the aggregate
 Aggregate Segregation. The separation of the constituent of the mix
is separation. it is very important to note that the fine particles fills
the voids in a mix are responsible for cohesion and If fine particles
are missing from the aggregate matrix, then the asphalt binder is
only able to bind the remaining coarse particles at their relatively
few contact points with little cohesion and too voids in the mix. so
such a mix has comparatively low strength and can easily be
dislodged when subjected to loading.
 Inadequate compaction during construction.
 Mechanical dislodging by particular types of traffic (studded tyres,
snowplow blades
Rutting/Permanent deformation

 Rutting or permanent
deformation is a load-related
depression found in the wheel
path area in longitudinal
direction of the road (along
the centre line of the road).
 Depending on the failure
mode, rutting may be seen
simply as the consolidation of
pavement layers in the wheel
path
 Round Aggregate have no
fracture face
 Inadequate compaction during
construction phase
 Too much binder in Asphalt
Mix
 Poor drainage
 Improper mix design
 Improper selection of
bitumen-Soft binder
 insufficient thickness design
Mode zero rutting

 Mode zero rutting takes place


through compaction of the
non-saturated materials in the
pavement structures and in
practice some level of mode
zero rutting always takes place
due to compaction in road
structure after its
construction.
 Normally compaction prior to
trafficking is sufficient to
prevent further compaction
under trafficking
Mode zero Rutting

Rutting of this type is normally


seen as a narrow depression in
the road surface relative to the
original surface. the material
affected is mostly near the
wheel path
Mode-I Rutting

 In a weak granular material,


local shear close to the wheel
may occur. this gives rise to
dilative heave immediately
adjacent to the wheel track
where granular material can
undergo large plastic shear
strains
 the maximum shear in mode
one rutting is felt at a depth
of approximately 1/3 rd of
the width of the wheel
Mode-II rutting.

 The pavement as a whole may


rut when the aggregate quality
is better. This can be viewed in
an idealized fashion as the
subgrade deforming with the
granular layers deflecting
bodily on it .
 The surface deflection pattern
takes the form of a broad rut
with slight heave remote from
the wheel (as it is the
displacement of the soil which
causes it
Polished Aggregate

The polished aggregate


basically represent the wear or
polishing of the aggregates
above the asphalt binder in
HMA surfacing
Patching
 An area of pavement that has
been replaced with new
material to repair the existing
pavement is called patching.
 A patch is considered a defect
no matter how well it
performs
 Patches are themselves a
repair action. The only way
they can be removed from a
pavement's surface is by either
a structural or non-structural
overlay
CORRUGTION

Transverse undulations appear


at regular intervals due to the
unstable surface course caused
by stop-and-go traffic due to
 Too much binder
 Soft Binder
 Low vide content
SHOVING

 A longitudinal displacement
of a localized area of the
pavement surface. It is
generally caused by braking
or accelerating vehicles. It
may also have vertical
displacement
 Too much binder
 Soft Binder
 Low vide content
DELAMINATION

Loss of a large area of


pavement surface due to poor
interlayer bonding.
CHECKING

 Short transverse cracks,


usually 1 to 3 inches in
length and about ½inch
deep, produced during
compaction due to:
 Temp<120 0C
 Too low Binder
Bitumen bleeding
Excess bituminous binder
occurring on the pavement
surface. May create a shiny,
glass-like, reflective surface
that may be tacky to the
touch. Usually found in the
wheel paths due to:
 Excess bitumen in mix
 Soft binder
 Low Voids in mix
PUMPING

Seeping or ejection of water


and fines from beneath the
pavement through cracks.
Causes:
 Porous pvt due to
inadequate compaction,
 High water table,
 Poor drainage.

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