November 2015 | EquipmentWorld.com
44
CONCRETE OVERLAYS:
highway contractor
|
by Chris Hill
|
ChrisHill@randallreilly.com
T
oday's roadbuilding
environment requires
more results from fewer
resources, so extending
pavement life is critical.
One way to do this is with con-
crete overlays.
Conventional thinking has con-
crete overlays most suited for high
volume, heavy truckload pave-
ments, such as intersections and in-
terchanges. In fact, it's been joked
that intersection projects are the
"gateway drug" for departments of
transportation to adopt concrete
overlays, primarily because the
projects are relatively small and the
results come quickly.
Concrete overlays have been
used for more than 100 years, with
more than 1,100 projects complet-
ed between 1901 and 2012, accord-
ing to American Concrete Pave-
ment Association fi gures. Projects
have been completed in 45 states,
and overlays make up 14 percent
of the concrete paving market. In
some regions of the country that
fi gure represents more than half
of the concrete pavements being
placed.
The growing concrete overlay
adoption rate can be attributed
to two factors, according to Leif
Wathne, ACPA vice president.
One is a push by the association
and its state chapters to educate
transportation agencies about the
effi cacy of concrete overlays as
a resurfacing option, a push that
began roughly a decade ago. The
other factor is price parity relative
to other resurfacing options.
"We developed design method-
ologies and guide specifi cations,
Price parity and growing
DOT/municipality use lead the industry
Concrete being delivered onto
the bonded section of a U.S.
58 overlay project in Virginia.
Virginia
DOT