Fast repair of concrete road pavements with precast elements
In the SPEED-FT project, the precast system for the rapid repair of damaged concrete pavement areas, which has already been used in initial applications in Germany, was further developed for use on Austrian motorways and tested in practical trials.
Both in Austria and Germany, concrete road pavements have proven their efficiency in the highly loaded road network due to their durable properties. But these pavement types also need to be maintained. Conventional repair work of damaged areas uses conventional concrete replacement systems (repair mortar, etc.) or asphalt. The latter leads to a weakening within the pavement, which is a heat-damage-favorable imperfection especially in the warmer season. In addition, these repaired areas often show renewed damage shortly after installation, so that there is a need for further action or total replacement of the road.
An alternative would be to replace parts of a road section using prefabricated concrete plates. A patented system (Partners Villaret/OAT) has shown excellent results. They are using prefabricated concrete plates (rectangular or circular up to diameters of 2,00m) and an installation adjustment device. The combination with a fast hardening silica resin allows a replacement of damaged parts within a few hours. No permanent construction sides or close downs are needed, the repair takes place during the night and the lanes are open for the morning traffic.
The aim of the project was to enable the installation of this special precast elements for a first-time application in a motorway, by further developing the system components and installation process. These include in particular the anchoring of the filling material as well as the transport and installation technology. The dimensioning method was to be developed for this purpose. As an alternative, the present coupling system was to be further developed in such a way that the use of different materials for under pressing and dowel chambers is possible.
A Demonstration site was carried out on Austrian concrete motorways (A1- St. Valentin) with accompanied embedded monitoring sensor and Falling weight deflector measurements. AIT was focusing on dynamic vehicle overpassing FE-simulations, the structural health monitoring using embedded Fiber optic Sensors. We were involved as the leading scientific partner and work package leader. The monitoring system is still running and valuable data are used for other projects like LEVITATE or PV-Süd.
Funded by the Federal Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK) and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).
