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theses

Pavement maintenance is the key to pavement preservation. Effective pavement preservation programs integrate many maintenance strategies and treatments, such as preventive, corrective and emergency maintenance. However, a common practice in pavement construction, core hole testing, and often leaves newly constructed roadways vulnerable to premature damage that can inhibit effective pavement preservation. There is no doubt that asphalt pavement needs to be tested for evaluation, verification and research purposes, and that core hole testing is a cost-effective and diagnostic method by which to verify asphalt properties, as dictated by the specifications, such as thickness, structural integrity, specific gravity, air void content and percent compaction. Nonetheless, Federal and State agencies currently enforce specific procedures for asphalt core hole restoration and the current construction practice for asphalt core hole restoration does not enforce proper compaction to the restoration fill material, adequate protection to the edge and tips of the existing structure resulting from core drilling and adequate aesthetic physical appearance of the pavement structure. The lack of proper restoration of asphalt core holes leads to multiple potential asphalt fatigues, such as partial weaknesses in pavement structures due to low compaction, initiation of cracking, spalling and/ or potholes at the edges of the existing surrounding pavement structure. Dispersion of the top surface of the core hole restoration material will also result to scattering of debris throughout the roadway, disintegration of restoration material from the existing paved structure and an overall poor physical appearance of the pavement structure. The need of inventing a new device to improve the core restoration procedures is crucial and much needed to enhance the construction practice of restoring and protecting asphalt core holes. This study presents the development of the core hole Cap device in addition to full investigation of the technical and practical application and feasibility of the asphalt core hole Cap innovation. This study also presents a finite element modeling of the Cap device performance and a life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) of the pavement structure using the Cap device. The Cap device for asphalt core holes should enhance the compaction of the asphalt core restoration material, enhance the physical appearance of pavements and protect asphalt core holes and hence, the pavement structure.

ETD_9578

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-5c9j-qf79

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.