Fracture Energy of Roller Compacted Concrete Pavements

This study is set out to examine the bending, toughness and fracture energy of RCC pavements produced by double drum vibratory hand roller (DDVHR) to simulate the real performance of RCC in the laboratory environment. To this end, four different binder dosages (200, 300,400, and 600 kg/m3) and two different aggregate gradations (Dmax 12 and 19 mm) were selected to investigate the effect of mixture design on bending, toughness and fracture energy of RCC mixtures. The different mixtures were poured into a large pavement mold (LPM), which was fabricated in laboratory, and compacted by DDVHR. After that, in order to determine the bending, toughness and fracture energy of RCC mixtures, LPM were cut to beam specimens with sizes according to Japan Concrete Institute (JCI). In addition, cores were taken from LPM to compare 28 days' compressive strengths and compaction ratios of the mixtures. At the end of the study, contrary to expectations, the fracture energies for all RCC mixtures except one combination were very close to each other. The increase in cement dosage or the maximum aggregate size did not lead to a significant change in the fracture energy. The mixture that was developed to obtain a high performance RCC appeared to have the lowest fracture energy. Above all, the compaction ratio of the mixtures was effective in the all results.