Effect of Slab Size on Design of Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement

Jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP) are designed using guidelines like PCA (Thickness design for concrete highway and street pavements, Portland Cement Association), and IRC 58 (Guidelines for the design of plain jointed rigid pavements for highways, Indian Road Congress). These guidelines suggest nearly the same slab size (3.5 × 4.5 m) for the construction. It has been observed that shorter panels are often used in construction of concrete pavement in India. Therefore, it is important to study the effect of panel size on the thickness design. It is general understanding that, the thickness requirement of concrete pavement may decrease compared to traditional sized pavement due to reduction in flexural stresses. However, IRC 58 (2015) and PCA (1984) is silent about the design of JPCP for size of panels other than standard. Literature related to design of short panel concrete pavement are studied and important conclusions are drawn. In this study, finite element model (FEM) of a concrete slab is developed using computer software and validated with existing methods. Various short size slab panels are analyzed considering single and tandem axle load. The behavior of these slabs is studied and recommendations are presented.