Durable and Cost Effective Concrete Overlay on City Bituminous Roads: Whitetopping
Binod Kumar, Scientist, CRRI
Introduction
Concrete is a very durable material for the construction of roads and highways. Several highways, expressway, and city roads have been constructed with cement concrete in the recent past in India. Cement concrete roads offer many advantages like long life of more than 30 years, minimum maintenance requirement, and 10-15 % fuel saving for heavy vehicles. Cement concrete has been used for the construction of new roads, highways and also for the rehabilitation of existing distressed bituminous pavements.Rutting and potholing of bituminous pavement is a real problem in hot climate like India's, with heavy truck loads, operating under frequent start/stop conditions. Concrete overlay is commonly applied where rutting and potholing of bituminous pavements is a recurring problem. Concrete overlays offer the potential for extended service life, increased structural and functional capacity, reduced maintenance requirements, and lower life-cycle costs when compared with bituminous overlay alternative.