An investigation on cell-filled pavements

Abstract

This paper describes the findings of a study carried out for investigating the structural behaviour of different types of cell-filled pavements. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the behaviour of pavements constructed by filling the cells with (a) cement concrete (b) soil cement and (c) sand cement laid over two different types of sub-bases (moorum and soil cement). A formwork of cells of thin recycled plastic sheets was used to construct cell-filled pavements, which function as cast-in situ interlocked block pavements. A loaded truck was used to apply about 1500 load passes on test sections for the purpose of conditioning the pavement sections before structural evaluation. Surface deflections were measured using a falling weight deflectometer and resilient moduli of pavement layers were estimated from the measured deflections. A comparison of costs of different types of cell-filled pavements with those of traditional flexible and rigid pavements designed for low traffic volumes indicates that cell-filled pavements are cost-effective compared with conventional pavements, particularly in locations with scarcity of aggregates.

Keywords:

• pavement
• plastic cell
• concrete
• subgrade strain
• low-volume road