Guide for Concrete Pavement Distress Assessments and Solutions: Identification, Causes, Prevention, and Repair

The Guide for Concrete Pavement Distress Assessments and Solutions is intended to assist with pavement preservation by helping to identify the causes and remedies for concrete pavement distress. By understanding the basic principles of concrete pavement preservation, engineers will be able manage their pavement networks to provide safe and dependable roadways while minimizing disruptions to the public for repair and maintenance activities. Establishing a proactive approach to pavement condition monitoring and planned maintenance activities will reward owner agencies with not only long life from their concrete pavements but also reduced ownership costs and minimal disruption to the traveling public. The number of failure mechanisms that may occur in concrete are fairly limited. However, most distress is a combination of more than one mechanism, exhibiting in an array of different forms. This manual goes into the details of the different types of distress observed in the field. It is also important to remember that the presence of one or more distress type in a concrete pavement may not trigger corrective action by the engineer because such distresses may have limited impact on the pavement’s overall functionality.