INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT PARAMETERS ONCRITICAL STRESSES IN CONCRETE PAVEMENT

Concrete pavements are largely constructed and promoted by government in recent years in India. Concrete pavements are preferred over bituminous pavements due to its low life cycle cost, durability and low maintenance. Design of plain jointed concrete pavement depends on the stress ratio (i.e. ratio of flexural stress to flexural strength). Flexural stress calculation is influenced by many parameters like stiffness of soil subgrade, vehicle axle loads, environmental loads, location of load placement, load arrangement, tyre pressure, material properties of concrete, design period, repetition of loads and slab size. It is very important to estimate errorless response of pavement for given practical conditions. A study has been carried out on important parameters that affects the design of plain jointed concrete pavement. Study shows that finite element analysis should be done to obtain the critical flexural stresses as many widely used guidelines are based on many assumptions.