Abstract

Concrete pavements (CPs) are durable and they do not need periodic invasive maintenance interventions. Nevertheless, CPs are hardly chosen when only initial costs, instead of life-cycle costs, are considered in the evaluation. Nowadays, there are innovations in Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements (JPCPs) that reduce initial costs about 25% with respect to alternatives with equivalent structural capacity. This paper addresses the question if the innovations early-entry saw-cutting of joints, joints without seals and shorter joint spacing (without dowels bars) are able to maintain the traditional life-cycle performance of CPs. All these innovations affect the joints of the JPCP, and these ones the JPCP performance. Accordingly, the objective of the present paper is to analyse the effects of the joints behaviour on the performance of the JPCPs innovations. The joint behaviour is characterized by the joint activation and opening, the joint capacity to transfer traffic loads and the joint deterioration. The calculations of the joints activation and opening are made with a model developed by the authors. For the estimation of the joint transfer capacity; the results of finite-element software are used. The analysis is completed with field data of the JPCPs innovations. The innovations analysed contribute to a sustainable infrastructure as they can maintain, and even improve, the traditional life-cycle performance of CPs with lower initial costs. Nevertheless, for the design hypotheses to be valid, it is necessary to assure the joints activation and to limit the joints opening to 1.2 mm. With this purpose, for the analysed conditions, it is recommended to cut the joints at least at 30% of the JPCP thickness.