Pavements Knowledge Area  

By: Joseph C. Dean, P.E. for the Director, Corrosion Policy & Oversight (DASD) [Materiel Readiness]

Updated: 11-20-2019

 

INTRODUCTION

Pavements are the essential connector within DoD Installations, airfields, waterfronts, and to and from adjacent communities. Pavements include both concrete and asphalt surfaces that create the following:

• Airfield runways, parking ramps and hangars
• Roads
• Bridges
• Waterfront
• Piers
• Dry-docks
• Sidewalks
• Walking paths
• Walkways (elevated)

Corrosion impacts these surfaces in the following manner:

• Asphalt binder breakdown
• Loss of flexibility
• Cracking & pothole failure
• Base course & structural failure
• Concrete reinforcing steel corrosion (spalling)

Corrosion stressors include:

• Thermal & Photo Oxidation
• Ultra-violet Radiation degradation
• Freeze Thaw (Frost Heave)
• Corrosion of reinforcing steel (Concrete Pavements)
• Chemical impacts (salt & other chemicals)
• Heat impacts of jet blast
• Interaction of aircraft with the pavement (e.g. friction loss, surface breakdown, etc.)

Operational and Mission Impacts can be serious and include the following:

• For operational pavements such as airfields & critical road infrastructure, loss of mission capability affecting the National Defense.
• For roads & related pavements, inability to support designed functions creating delays, congestion, disruption.
• For bridges, access denial and life safety.
• For dry docks and waterfront pavements, loss of mission capability, life safety.

DESCRIPTION

Pavements represent the lifeline between essential requirements. Corrosion impacts are extensive and pervasive. The cost to construct these facilities is significant, but sustaining them is much more of a challenge. Keeping facilities infrastructure operational is a full time task requiring ever increasing resources. It is often easier to avoid or defer pavement repairs while they are seemingly functional. Failure can be both gradual and catastrophic. In both instances the cost to defer essential repairs is costly and mission impacting.

These pictures provide a small sample of concrete and asphalt failure issues. The cost to repair these pavement facilities is not trivial.

Pavement Challenges

Understanding the pavement technology, design, construction and sustainment and the associated risks and stresses is an absolute must for engineers, architects and sustainment engineers. Salt water is an excellent electrolyte contributing to an aggressive corrosive environment. Hydrostatic forces, wind, salt spray, ultraviolet radiation, temperature variations, frost, heave, surface erosion, asphalt binder failure all contribute to corrosion and erosion of concrete and asphalt pavements. Utilizing sustainment management system tools such as Paver™  will assist the installation in tracking pavement facilities and identifying maintenance requirements such that they can be funded and sustained.

Pavement Management Techniques

Methods of Corrosion Control for Pavements include:

• Utilizing an SMS tool such as Paver
• Good design practice
• Good construction practice
• Good Quality Control and Quality Assurance focused on CPC in pavements
• Corrosion awareness and facility monitoring
• Material selection
• Selection of appropriate surface treatments
• Proactive sustainment management
• CPC Training

Through understanding the severity and stresses associated with pavement design and construction and pavement sustainment, new and existing pavements will have a greater possibility of meeting mission requirements over the life cycle. It is essential that the right materials are selected, installed and maintained. Pavements have to hold up to repetitive stresses and forces that can be marginalized by corrosion stressors. The engineer, architect and sustainment professional should seek assistance of SMEs in this area to ensure that their projects will remain durable and sustainable over the desired life cycle. The extensive list of Resources listed below is an indication of the enormity of issues associated with concrete and asphalt pavements.

Consulting a Pavements Subject Matter Expert (SME)

Pavement Discipline Area SMEs provide invaluable consultation skills developed from years of experience assessing corrosion prevention requirements and many environments. The SMEs can translate local conditions into the interdisciplinary solutions that provide immediate and long-term benefits to the installation and its SRM bottom line costs. Typical consulting services provided by the SMEs include:

• Multi-discipline coordination and understanding
• Airfield pavement friction analysis
• Bridge inspections
• Materials analysis and selection
• Problem assessment
• Failure analysis
• Environmental Severity impacts
• System and material selection
• Review and assessment of contractor deliverables
• Quality assurance
• System design
• SRM analysis and recommendations (system inspection and testing assistance)
• Hazards analysis
• Assessment of the sustainability and durability of new technologies
• Process analysis
• Anti-terrorism threat analysis and protection technologies

Relevant Codes and Standards

Department of Defense

Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC)

• UFC 3-190-06 Protective Coatings And Paints
• UFC 3-250-01 Pavement Design for Roads and Parking Areas
• UFC 3-250-04 Standard Practice For Concrete Pavements, with Change 2
• UFC 3-250-08FA Standard Practice For Sealing Joints and Cracks In Rigid and Flexible Pavements
• UFC 3-260-01 Airfield and Heliport Planning and Design
• UFC 3-260-02 Pavement Design for Airfields
• UFC 3-260-03 Airfield Pavement Evaluation
• UFC 3-260-16FA Airfield Pavement Condition Survey Procedures
• UFC 3-270-03 Concrete Crack and Partial-Depth Spall Repair
• UFC 3-270-04 Concrete Repair
• UFC 3-270-06 Paver Asphalt Surfaced Airfields Pavement Condition Index
• UFC 3-270-08 Pavement Maintenance Management
• UFC 3-535-01 Visual Air Navigation Facilities
• UFC 3-570-01 Cathodic Protection
• UFC 3-570-06 Operation and Maintenance: Cathodic Protection Systems
• UFC 4-150-07 Maintenance of Waterfront Facilities
• UFC 4-151-10 General Criteria for Waterfront Construction
• UFC 4-152-01 DESIGN: Piers and Wharves

Unified Facilities Guide Specifications (UFGS)

• UFGS 03 31 29 Marine Concrete
• UFGS 09 97 13.26 Coating of Steel Waterfront Structures, Zero Voc, Splash Zone Coating
• UFGS 26 42 (13 though 22) Cathodic Protection Specifications
• UFGS 32 11 16 [Base Course for Rigid] [and Subbase for Flexible] Paving
• UFGS 32 11 23 Aggregate and/or Graded-Crushed Aggregate Base Course
• UFGS 32 11 24 Graded Crushed Aggregate Base Course for [Pervious][Flexible] 11-11 Pavement
• UFGS 32 13 11 Concrete Pavement for Airfields and Other Heavy-Duty Pavement
• UFGS 32 12 15.13 Hot-Mix Asphalt for Airfield Paving
• UFGS 32 12 17 Hot Mix Bituminous Pavement
• UFGS 32 13 13.06 Portland Cement Concrete Pavement For Roads And Site Facilities
• PWTB 420-49-29 Operation And Maintenance Of Cathodic Protection Systems
• PWTB 420-49-37 Cathodic Protection Anode Selection

AFCEC - Air Force

• AFI 32-1041 Pavement Evaluation Program 
• ETL 02-19 Air Field Pavement Evaluation Standards and Procedures
• ETL 11-4 Airfield Pavement Drainage Layers
• ETL 97-2 Maintenance and Repair Of Rigid Airfield Pavement Surfaces, Joints And Cracks, with Change 1
• ETL 14-4 Vertical Landing Zone (VLZ) and Other Airfield Pavement Design and Construction Using High Temperature Concrete 

Navy - NAVFAC

• TDS NAVFAC EXWC-CI-1403 Mitigating Concrete Damage Caused by Engine Exhaust Surface Temperature Below 500 degrees Fahrenheit 

Federal Aviation Administration

• FAA AC 150/5345-42 Specification for Airport Light Bases, Transformer Housings, Junction Boxes, and Accessories 
• FAA AC 150/5345-46 Specifications for Runway and Taxiway Light Fixtures 
• Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating (Concrete Airfield Pavements) 

Federal Highway Administration

• Pavement Identification Distress Manual for the NPS Road Inventory Program Cycle 4, 2006-2009 
• Chapter 3.0 Geotechnical Issues In Pavement Design And Performance

American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM)

• ASTM C131 Standard Test Method for Resistance to Degradation of Small-Size Coarse Aggregate by Abrasion and Impact in the Los Angeles Machine
• ASTM C88 Standard Test Method for Soundness of Aggregates by Use of Sodium Sulfate or Magnesium Sulfate
• ASTM C150/C150M Standard Specification for Portland Cement
• ASTM C1580 Standard Test Method for Water-Soluble Sulfate in Soil
• ASTM C618 Standard Specification for Coal Fly Ash and Raw or Calcined Natural Pozzolan for Use in Concrete
• ASTM C136 Standard Test Method for Sieve Analysis of Fine and Coarse Aggregates
• ASTM C117 Standard Test Method for Materials Finer than 75-?m (No. 200) Sieve in Mineral Aggregates by Washing
• ASTM C127 Standard Test Method for Density, Relative Density (Specific Gravity), and Absorption of Coarse Aggregate
• ASTM C260/C260M Standard Specification for Air-Entraining Admixtures for Concrete
• ASTM C494 Standard Specification for Chemical Admixtures for Concrete
• ASTM C1017/C1017M Standard Specification for Chemical Admixtures for Use in Producing Flowing Concrete
• ASTM C173/C173M Standard Test Method for Air Content of Freshly Mixed Concrete by the Volumetric Method
• ASTM C1116/C1116M Standard Specification for Fiber-Reinforced Concrete
• ASTM D5893/D5893M Standard Specification for Cold Applied, Single Component, Chemically Curing Silicone Joint Sealant for Portland Cement Concrete Pavements
• ASTM A242, ASTM A588, ASTM A606 (Thin sheets)
• ASTM A690 (H-Piles and Sheet Piling)
• ASTM A709 (Bridges)

National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) and Society for Protective Coatings (SSPC)

• Steel Structures Painting Council (SSPC) Paint No. 16 

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Publications

• 13 Pavement Defects and Failures You Should Know! by Brett Neal, Paveman Pro
• ACI 201.2R-08 Guide to Durable Concrete 2008
• Asphalt Pavement Distress Summary
• CALTRANS Manuals
• National Research Council Canada: Repairs to Restore Serviceability in Concrete Structures

Organizations

• American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
• FHWA Resource Center - Pavement and Materials Team
• NACE International (The Corrosion Society)
  
  • NACE Training and Certification
• SSPC (The Society for Protective Coatings)
  
  • SSPC Training and Certification
• STI (Steel Tank Institute)
  
  • STI Training and Certification
• Texas A&M Transportation Institute

Tools

• PAVER™ 
• PCASE

Assistance

Obtaining SME Assistance for DoD Installations

• Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Facilities Management
• Engineer Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL)
• Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC). Reach Back Center: AFCEC.RBC@us.af.mil
• Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC)