Polypropylene Fiber Reinforced Precast Concrete Blocks for Roads and Pavements
P.C.Sharma, Retd. Head Material Sciences, Structural Engg. Research Centre (G) Consultant and Concrete Technology Specialist, Editor NBMCW, New Delhi.
Roads are important infrastructure providing connectivity between cities, towns and even villages. Though there are large number of unpaved roads connecting interior villages, paved roads are convenient, comfortable in use and durable. Cities and towns have mohalla (street) roads provided to connect each locality, and to main roads. These street roads are generally provided with rigid pavements using bricks, cobble stones or cast insitu concrete. Only on wider roads flexible bitumen concrete pavements are provided because a road roller cannot reach most of the streets. Concrete pavements provided, in these narrow areas, generally suffer early damages due to
- improper mixing of ingredients and their quality
- Poor vibration (infact many times no vibration) hence poor compaction resulting poor strength and durability
- less or no curing due to difficult availability of water
- Early use by population living there. Sometimes even after 6 hours of concreting Pedestrians and Rixa etc. start using
- Poor surface finish/leveling-undulations in surface
- poor supervision generally these jobs are executed in night under poor light conditions to avoid disturbance due to day traffic.
