Influence de la rigidité du revêtement sur les prédictions de soulèvement au gel

Abstract

Each year, during winter, frost penetration in road structures creates new stresses. Those new stresses can cause heaving of the pavement. Depending on the road structure, several prediction tools can be used to quantify the magnitude of frost heaves. Those tools do not consider the type of pavement. The research problematic of this project is to determine if the stiffness of the pavement impacts the magnitude of the frost heaves. Currently, the maximum accepted frost heaves are limited on highway by the Ministry of Transport of Quebec is 50 mm for asphalt pavement structure and 40 mm for rigid pavement structure. When the magnitude of frost heaves exceeds these values, an insulating layer of granular material is introduced in order to reduce the amount of frost susceptible subgrade exposed to freezing. A more resistant pavement against frost heaves would reduce the thickness of the insulating layer resulting in significant savings. To solve the problematic, a finite difference analysis software was used in order to model a road structure. Four types of pavement were analysed on this road structure. An asphalt pavement, a continuous reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP), a jointed reinforced concrete pavement (JRCP) with dowels and a JRCP without dowels were modeled in the software. The stresses and strains associated with frost heaving of an asphalt pavement were applied using the finite differences analysis software on the three types of rigid pavement. It was possible to simulate the response of these rigid pavements against frost heaves. In the case where the stresses associated with frost heaving of asphalt pavement were applied to the three types of rigid pavements, the results show that the reduction of the heaving is important. In cases where the strains associated with frost heaving of an asphalt pavement were applied to the three types of rigid pavements, the results also show that the reduction of frost heave is important. In those two cases, no layer of granular material would be needed. These simulations show that a high stiffness pavement should be able to reduce, in part, the magnitude of the predicted frost heave.

Date	5 May 2015
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Michel Vaillancourt (Supervisor) & Alan Carter (Co-supervisor)