Full-Scale Accelerated Testing of Flexible Pavements Made of Coal Combustion Products

Abstract

Increasing environmental concerns and diminishing landfill space coupled with the rising costs of natural resources consumed in road construction have encouraged researchers to investigate the use of recycled materials in pavement design. This investigation evaluated the performance of full-scale asphalt pavements made with recycled coal combustion products (CCPs) during accelerated pavement testing. Three instrumented pavement sections—two CCP sections and one conventional section—were constructed and tested at the Ohio accelerated pavement loading facility (APLF). All three pavement sections were subjected to the equivalent of 20 years of traffic on a typical state route in Ohio. To minimize the environmental effects, both ambient temperature and moisture were controlled throughout the loading period. Pavement response and performance and environmental conditions were monitored. Based on the data collected, the CCP base–subbase mixtures outperformed the control mix in terms of measured pavement response and higher pavement stiffness, as exhibited by the falling weight deflectometer (FWD) testing results. At the end of accelerated loading, the moduli of the two CCP base–subbase mixtures, as backcalculated from the FWD tests, were up to three times higher than that measured for the control section.