Equipment World

January 2015

Equipment World Digital Magazine

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January 2015 | EquipmentWorld.com 56 Concrete overlays With little new construction going on because of the lack of a long- term highway funding bill, pavement preservation has become a priority for most agencies and municipalities. This is an area where concrete over- lays are showing great promise. "Concrete overlays have been around for a while, but within the last seven to eight years in particular, we've seen a tremendous growth in the use of the technology," says Bill Davenport, vice-president of com- munications at the American Con- crete Pavement Association (ACPA). "The downturn in the economy has played a part in that. Agencies are required to do more with less. They don't have the money to do every- thing they'd like to do or everything they need to do, so that's where the concrete pavement overlay comes into play." There are several types of concrete overlays that fall into two categories, bonded or unbonded. Within these categories, overlays are placed over distressed asphalt, concrete or com- posite pavements. One of the most common applications is bonded concrete over asphalt. In these ap- plications, generally, the top 2 to 5 inches of the asphalt wearing course is milled off and replaced with concrete. The thin concrete overlay Some old concrete pavement technologies are making a comeback and giving asphalt a run for its money T he technologies behind the concrete pavements used on our nation's roads and highways have been around for a while, but new developments in equipment and admixtures have opened up the market for some of them, making them the lat- est trends in concrete paving. These trends include concrete overlays, roller compacted concrete and full-depth reclamation. highway contractor | by Kerry Clines Concrete overlays are showing great promise as an alternative to total road replacement. They go down quickly compared to complete road replacement, allowing the road to be opened to traffic much quicker.

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