United States Department of Transportation
i
Tolerances for Placement of Tie Bars in Portland Cement Concrete Pavement
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2017-05-31
[PDF-5.15 MB]
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Edition:Final Report November 2013 May 2017
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Abstract:Longitudinal joints are an essential part of Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) pavement slabs. These joints are reinforced with tie bars in order to control joint opening due to thermal stresses. Inspections of PCC pavements by the South Dakota Department of Transportation (SD DOT) using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) revealed that it is common for tie bars to be misplaced or missing. It is unclear if these discrepancies would result in additional maintenance costs and reduced pavement life. The tie bar misalignment tolerances that have been established in existing specifications are arbitrary and are not based on any engineering or economic data. Therefore, there is a need for a study to determine the effects of different tie bar misalignments on the tie bar performance in order to establish acceptable placement tolerances. A comprehensive literature review was carried out to look at existing specifications and past studies. The effect of different misalignment configurations and magnitudes on the longitudinal joint performance was examined by conducting laboratory experiments on PCC slabs incorporating four different misalignment configurations and four different misalignment magnitudes. While vertical and longitudinal translation misalignments had no significant effect on the performance of the longitudinal joint, vertical skew misalignment had a mild effect only on joint faulting. Horizontal skew misalignment, however, caused a significant increase in both joint opening and joint faulting. Horizontal skew misalignment also caused a significant decrease in the maximum allowable load. Simplified hand calculations can conservatively estimate the allowable load for horizontal skew misalignments. Based on the results, recommendations are to reduce the horizontal skew tolerance limit from 18 in. to, at most, 16 in.
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