Temperature Gradient and Curling Stresses in Concrete Pavement with and without Open-Graded Friction Course

Curling stresses of concrete pavement can be very damaging, and reducing the temperature swings would be very beneficial. This study includes a field instrumentation effort with pavement temperature sensors to quantify the thermal behavior of concrete pavement with and without an open-graded asphalt rubber friction course. The study shows a nonlinear temperature profile across slab thickness, with a large change in temperature between day and night at the top of the concrete slab, and little change at the bottom of the slab. Adding an open-graded friction course over the concrete pavement reduces the temperature fluctuation between day and night as a result of the aeration effect, which is increased by traffic. A three-dimensional (3D) finite-element analysis with a nonlinear temperature gradient shows that adding the friction course reduces the curling stresses in the summer. Furthermore, since traffic increases the aeration effect, sections without traffic show lower effect of friction course on reducing the temperature differentials between the top and bottom of the slab.