Avaliação do desempenho de pavimentos intertravados em função da abertura das juntas, diferentes bases e defeitos na camada de rolamento

Abstract

The increasing use of interlocking pavements creates the need to understand their structural performance. The useful life of these pavements is subject to change from sizing to operation, because of the variations in their structural capacity. In view of the above, the purpose of this work was to analyze the impact on the useful life of the structure of an interlocking pavement as of factors such as joint opening, different solutions for the base layer and defects in the bearing layer. The increasing use of interlocking pavements creates the need to understand their structural performance. The useful life of these pavements is subject to change from sizing to operation, because of the variations in their structural capacity. In view of the above, the purpose of this work was to analyze the impact on the useful life of the structure of an interlocking pavement as of factors such as joint opening, different solutions for the base layer and defects in the bearing layer. To evaluate the opening of the joints, scenarios were simulated alternating the compressive strength and the thickness of the blocks in order to verify the permanent deformation for heavy traffic, then the difference in cost of each alternative in relation to performance was analyzed. Regarding the alternatives at the base, structures were simulated without their presence for light traffic and structures with different granular and cemented materials for heavy traffic were represented, in which the difference in cost of each alternative was also evaluated. Elastic analysis was carried out using the ELSYM5 software in order to identify the acting efforts. With the tensions in hand, an empirical mechanistic verification was carried out either by adopting a limit criterion or by the evolution of the damage to define the useful life of the pavement. It was found that the increase in joint opening by 33.3% for a heavy traffic level resulted in early failure of the structure in all scenarios analyzed by the evolution of permanent deformation. The variation in compressive strength and thickness of the blocks were not enough to compensate for inadequate opening of the joints, and imply an increase in the cost of implantation. Regarding the base layer, it was verified that the adoption of cemented materials without a fatigue control can incur a decrease in the useful life of the structure and the use of granular materials allow to meet the design useful life. It was concluded that the transmission of effort in the joints is the most relevant aspect in the operation of interlocking pavements, in view of the concentration of efforts. It was also understood that granular materials can be used in the base layer for interlocking pavements at any level of traffic.