Functional Performance of Cement Concrete Pavements Case Studies

  Dr. S.D. Sharma, Scientist, Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi

Economic liberalization in India during the past decade has resulted in the rapid expansion of cement industry. With a production capacity of about 200 million tonnes per annum, the industry has emerged as the second largest in the world. Increased investments envisaged in the core sectors of infrastructure, viz., roads, highways, and so on railways, irrigation, power, housing, through appropriate allocation in the Tenth Five Year Plan and annual budgets as well as other positive policy directives and developmental plans recently introduced by the govt. of India have brightened the scope for further growth of cement industry.

Functional needs, characterized by geometric features and surface characteristics are of paramount importance in ensuring road user comfort and safety. The effects of roughness on vehicle operating and pavement costs are well known. Higher pavement roughness reduces vehicle’s speed, increases wear and tear of vehicles, increases consumption of fuel and lubricants of vehicles. It also increases maintenance cost of vehicles as well as of pavements. Therefore, the roughness of pavement surface is one of the main factors which need immediate attention of field engineers and planners. Functional performance study in terms of roughness is conducted on different road sections of cement concrete pavements.