CRACKING OF OPEN TRAFFIC RIGID PAVEMENT

Chatarina Niken1,*, Yudi Siswanto2, Widodo3, and Elly Tjahjono4

1Concrete Sciences, Civil Engineering Department, University of Lampung, Indonesia

2Transportation Sciences, Civil Engineering Department, University of Lampung, Indonesia
3Transportation Sciences, Civil Engineering Department, University of Lampung, Indonesia
4Materials Sciences, Civil Engineering Department, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

Abstract. The research is done by observing the growth of real structure cracking in Natar, Lampung,
Indonesia compared to C. Niken’s et al research and literature study. The rigid pavement was done with
open traffic system. There are two main crack types on Natar rigid pavement: cracks cross the road, and
cracks spreads on rigid pavement surface. The observation of cracks was analyzed by analyzing material,
casting, curing, loading and shrinkage mechanism. The relationship between these analysis and shrinkage
mechanism was studied in concrete micro structure. Open traffic make hydration process occur under
vibration; therefore, fresh concrete was compressed and tensioned alternately since beginning. High
temperature together with compression, cement dissociation, the growth of Ca2+ at very early age leads
abnormal swelling. No prevention from outside water movement leads hydration process occur with limited
water which caused spreads fine cracks. Limited water improves shrinkage and plastic phase becomes
shorter; therefore, rigid pavement can’t accommodate the abnormal swelling and shrinking alternately and
creates the spread of cracks. Discontinuing casting the concrete makes both mix under different condition,
the first is shrink and the second is swell and creates weak line on the border; so, the cracks appear as cracks
across the road.

1 Introduction important to prevent water evaporation right after casting

Rigid pavements generally are made from concrete, with
or without reinforcement. Rigid pavement lays over sub
base and sub grade as shown in Figure 1. Sub base can
be made from lean concrete or stone structure. Over the
past few years, the reliance has shifted more to rigid
pavement because of its low maintenance cost, long
service life, and smoother riding surface (Singh,
Sachdeva, 2015). Besides its of the advantages, rigid
pavement is expensive due to the high cost of concrete
and reinforcement. Selain kelebihannya, trotoar kaku
mahal karena tingginya biaya beton dan penguatan. The
economic consideration are carried out for the pavement
design of a section by using the results obtained by
design methods and their corresponding component layer
thickness (Jain, Joshi, Goliya, 2013). Because of low
initial cost, flexible roads are preferred to concrete road
pavement, but bituminous roads deteriorate during the
rainy season and maintenance becomes costly (Supe,
Gupta, 2014)tapi jalan beraspal menjadi menurun selama
musim hujan dan perwatan menjadi mahal. In concrete
pavement, a single concrete mixture design and
structural surface layer are selected to resist mechanical
loading without an attempt to affect pavement shrinkage,
ride quality or noise attenuation adversely (Roesler,
Paulino, Gaedicke, Bordelon, Park, 2014). It is
because micro cracks of rigid pavement can avoided.
The micro cracks can grow and accumulate due to
applied load and by climate. The accumulation of cracks
can create deterioration in the concrete; therefore, rigid
pavement performance is decreased and its service life
becomes shorter. These circumstances can change into
serious problems because accumulated cracks make the
structure unsafe. Rigid pavement or concrete pavement
needs high attention during planning, preparing, placing,
curing and load scheduling. The faults in every step of
producing rigid pavement leads to concrete deterioration,
micro cracks and wider cracks.
There are many types of cracks such as the tearing of
concrete through paver, plastic shrinkage cracking at
pavement surface, map cracking (craze cracks), transfer
and oblique cracks within the panel, random longitudinal
cracks within the panel, corner cracks (break at panel
corner), random transverse cracks at or near transverse
joints, random longitudinal cracks at or near longitudinal
joints, and cracks in front of saw during joint cutting
(Mosa, Ismail, Yusoff, Mubarak, Memon, Taha, Hainin,
2015). Variation of crack width in Texas was studied
(Nam, Kim, Choi, Won, 2014). They mentioned that an
immediate decrease in crack width was observed after
rain. There was clear evidence that moisture variation in
concrete has substantial effect on concrete volume

*
Corresponding author: chatarinaniken@yahoo.com
change and crack widths (Nam et.al, 2014). Locally
calibrate the transfer cracking and IRI (smoothness)
performance model for newly constructed and
rehabilitated rigid pavement has been published (Haider,
Brink, Buch, 2014).
Cracks are also caused by flexural fatigue, and non-
homogenous deflection in sub-base or sub grade. The
non-homogenous deflection has been led by erosion of
the sub-base or sub-grade. Defleksi non-homogen telah
mengarah pada erosi sub-base atau sub-grade. Erosion of
the sub-base occurs if it is structural stone; thus, this
erosion is not similar in every point in the sub-base.
Erosi sub-base terjadi jika itu adalah batu struktural;
Dengan demikian, erosi ini tidak serupa di setiap titik di
sub-base. Non-homogenous erosion makes deflection
different at any point of rigid pavement. Erosi non-
homogen membuat defleksi berbeda pada setiap titik
perkerasan kaku. The swelling of roadbed soil also
causes deformation of its upper layer (AASHTO, 1993).
Erosion and flexural crack types, generally begin from
the bottom to the top, and crack by swelling of roadbed
soil begin from the top. Top-down cracking has been
found to be a predominant mode of asphalt pavement
distress in Florida (Wang, Birgisson, Roque, 2014).
Deflection, erosion, and swelling always occur because
of climate change; so, the base layer of rigid pavement
has dynamic properties. Field observation has
demonstrated that there is an increase in reflecting
cracking of PCC (Portland Cement Composites) slabs
placed over relatively a stiff base layer (Ashtiani, Tirado,
Carrasco, Nazarian, 2016). Observasi lapangan telah
menunjukkan bahwa ada peningkatan dalam
merefleksikan retak lempeng PCC (Portland Cement
Composites) yang ditempatkan di atas lapisan dasar yang
relatif kaku.
Foundation layers in finite element analysis of
jointed pavement concrete system were done with
appropriate idealization to predict the thermo mechanical
response of jointed PCC slabs accurately (Ashtiani et al,
2016). Many researchers have also studied rigid
pavement response using the finite element method
Banyak peneliti juga mempelajari respons perkerasan
kaku dengan menggunakan metode elemen hingga
(Khan, Qadeer, Harwalkar, 2014; Gibigaye, Yabi,
Alloba, 2016; Harik, Jianping, Southgate, Allen, 1994).
Significant changes in the slab curvature shape
(curl/warp) also occurs through thermal gradient, from
positive to negative and vice versa. Even, critical cases
in the stress were found in the combination of wheel load
and the positive thermal gradient (El-Maaty, Hekal,
Salah El-Din, 2016; Ceylan, Kim, Gopalakhrisnan,
Wang, 2014; Qin, Hiller, 2011; Guclu, Ceylan,
Gopalakhrisnan, Kim, 2009) Bahkan, kasus kritis dalam
stres ditemukan pada kombinasi beban roda dan gradien
termal positif. Statements as mentioned above lead
particles movement to any direction. The horizontal
movement of any point is almost uniform, but transverse
movements are different (Gill and Maharaj, 2015).
From the above mentioned, it can be seen that there
are complex mechanisms which cause deformation due
to induced cracks such as the raw materials of concrete,
mix design, casting system, treatment right after casting,
curing system, loading time, loading system, fatigue,
weather, erosion in sub-base/sub grade, and swelling of
roadbed soil. Therefore, the study of cracking rigid
pavement can involve a very wide field. The objective of
this study is to understand the cause of rigid pavement
cracking which occurs in Natar, Lampung Province,
Indonesia.
2 Experimental details
The experimental details were divided into 2 parts:
Natar, Lampung, Indonesia rigid pavement and Niken,
Elly, and Supartono’s research of rigid pavement (un-
published).
The research was done through a case study in one
place in Natar Lampung Province, Indonesia. The
research was done by observing cracks which appeared
in Natar. The observation included the age of lean
concrete (LC) as sub-base and rigid pavement when the
cracks appeared, the growth of cracks, crack width,
1.00 5.00 1.00
30
10
Pavement quality concrete
Dry lean concrete sub base
Subgrade soil
Embankment
quality of concrete, treatment right after casting, curing
system, weather, and loading system. The rigid
pavement was built with open traffic system: half part
was done longitudinally, while another part was used as
traffic.
Rigid pavement in Natar uses concrete quality of 30
MPa. The rigid pavement (RP) lays over the lean
concrete (LC) with a compressive force (fc’) of 15 MPa.
Rigid pavement in Natar was build with the cross section
as shown in Figure 1.
Fig.1. Cross section of the rigid pavement
The embankment in Fig.1 is similar to roadbed soil
according to AASHTO 1993. The lean concrete function
is to obtain homogenous support for rigid pavement and
also for rigid pavement plate work. There is no
permeable sheet in the base and all sides of the lean
concrete and rigid pavement. Right after casting, the lean
concrete and rigid pavement were un-covered resulting
in contact between the surface of lean concrete or rigid
pavement and the surrounding weather occurred.
Curing was done by wet sacks which were sprayed with
water 3 times daily without de-molding the side part of
both concrete layers. These sacks covered the plate
surface for 1 until 7 days. Because of the lack of
understanding and control, the sacks were not always
wet during curing time. After that, the pavement came
into direct contacts with the surrounding weather. The
rigid pavement was cast when the lean concrete was 2 with a comma after all except the last author, which is
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When the lean concrete and rigid pavement was at the include the country.
age of 1 day, many fine cracks appeared on the surface
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