Construction Methods (0401448)

6 – Paving and
Surface Treatment
Dr. Khaled Hyari
Department of Civil Engineering
The Hashemite University
Jordan

Paving and Surface Treatment

• Paving and surface treatments are Used to:
– Provide a roadway wearing surface
– Protect the underlying material from moisture
• Two types of pavements:
– Asphalt pavements (flexible pavements)
– Concrete pavements (rigid pavements)
• Surface treatments: applying liquid asphalt or
some other bituminous material to a roadway
surface

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 The Bituminous Distributor
• Used to apply liquid bituminous materials
• Utilized in almost all types of bituminous
construction
• Rate of application (liters per square
meter) depends on:
– Spray bar length (1.2 m to 7.3 m)
– Travel speed (meters per minute)
– Pump output (liter per minute)
• Pump output is measured by a pump
tachometer in liter per minute
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The Bituminous Distributor II

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 The Bituminous Distributor III
Standard asphalt volume is measured in at a
temperature of 15.5 C. A volumetric correction factor
must be applied to convert asphalt volume at other
temperatures to the standard volume

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Bituminous Surface Treatments III

• Bituminous surface treatments are used

to:
– Bond old and new surfaces or
– Seal and revive old pavements or
– Provide fresh waterproofing and wearing
surface

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 Bituminous Surface Treatments III

• A wide variety of surface treatments are

available:
– Prime coats
– Tack coats
– Dust palliatives
– Seal coats
– Single-pass surface treatments
– Multiple-pass surface treatments
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Prime Coats
• What?: A coating of light bituminous material
applied to a porous unpaved surface
• Why?:
– To seal the existing surface
– To provide a bond between the existing surface and
the new bituminous surface
• The usual rate of application varies from 1.1 to
2.3 liters per square meter
• All liquid bituminous should be absorbed within
24 hours and it should cure in about 48 hours
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 Tack Coats

• Tack coat: Thin coating of light

bituminous material applied to previously
paved surface to act as a bonding agent
– Usual rate of application is 0.45 liters per
square meter or less
– Tack coat must be allowed to cure to a
tacky condition before the new surfacing
layer is placed
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Dust Palliatives

• Dust palliative: A substance applied to an

unpaved surface to reduce the amount of dust
produced by vehicular traffic and wind
– Bituminous dust palliatives are designed to penetrate
and bond particles in the unpaved surface and
provide some waterproofing
– Other agents used as dust palliatives include water,
acrylic copolymer, and petroleum resins
– Except water they are usually effective for 30 days or
more
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 Seal Coats
• Fog seal: A light application of a slow-setting
asphalt emulsion diluted by 1 to 3 parts of water
– Used to seal small cracks and voids and to
revive old asphalt surfaces
– Usual application rate is 0.4 to 0.9 liters per
square meters
• Emulsion slurry seal: Composed of a mixture of
slow-setting asphalt emulsion, fine aggregate,
mineral filler, and water

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Seal Coats II
• Emulsion slurry seal: Continued
– Usual mixtures contain by weight 20-25%
asphalt emulsion, 50-65% fine aggregate, 3-10%
mineral filler, and 10-15% water
– Slurry is placed in a layer 0.6 cm or less in
thickness using slurry seal machines, spreader
boxes
• Sand seal: Composed of a light application of a
medium-viscosity liquid asphalt covered with fine
aggregates
– Rate of application
• Liquid asphalt: varies from 0.45 to 0.68 liters
per square meters
• Fine aggregate: 5.4 to 8.1 kg per square
meters 6 - 12

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Single- and Multiple Pass Surface Treatments
• Sometimes called aggregate surface treatments
• Made up of alternate applications of asphalt and
aggregate
• Used to waterproof a roadway and to provide
improved wearing surface
• Widely used because:
– They require a minimum of time, equipment, and material
– They lend themselves to stage construction (successive
applications are repeated over a period of time to provide
a higher level of roadway surface
• Single-pass surface treatment: constructed by
spraying on a layer of asphalt and covering it with a
layer of aggregate approximately one stone in
depth 6 - 13

Single-pass Surface Treatments

• The sequence of operations:
– Sweep the existing surface
– Apply prime coat and cure, if required
– Apply binder at the specified rate (1.1 to 1.4
liters/m2 )
• Type and quantity of binder depends on
ambient temperature, aggregate absorbency,
and aggregate size)
– Apply aggregate at the specified rate (13 to 16
kg/m2 of ½ in or smaller aggregate)
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 Single-pass Surface Treatments II

• The sequence of operations, continued:

– Roll the surface to imbed the aggregate in in the
binder and to interlock aggregate particles
– Sweep again to remove loose stone that might
cause damage when thrown by fast vehicles
• Spreading of aggregate must be follow immediately
after binder application
– Binder temperature has been found to drop to ambient
surface temperature in about 2 minutes
– Every effort should be made to apply aggregate within 2
minutes after binder application
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Multiple-pass Surface Treatments

• Two or more single surface treatments

placed on top of each other
• Same construction as single pass surface
treatments except applying more than one
binder/aggregate layers
• The maximum size of aggregate used in
each layer should be about one half the size
used in the underlying layer
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 Asphalt Paving

• Hot-mix asphalt (HMA) pavement:

• Hot-mix paving operations include:
– Delivery of the asphalt mix
– Spreading of the mix
– Compacting the mix

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Asphalt Paver

• The primary purpose of the paver is to place

the hot mix asphalt to the desired width,
grade, cross slope, and thickness and to
produce a uniform mat texture. The paver
should also be able to place the HMA in a
manner that results in improved ridability and
smoothness of the roadway
• The paver consists of two primary parts:
– The tractor unit, and
– The screed unit
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 Asphalt Paver II
• Asphalt Truck, Tractor unit, and Screed unit

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Asphalt Paver III

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 Asphalt Paver IV

• Tractor unit
– Provides the motive power to the paver
– Pushes the haul truck in front of the paver
during the unloading process
– receive the asphalt mixture directly from
the haul trucks, carry it through the
machine back to the augers, and then
distribute it across the width of the screed

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Asphalt Paver V

• Tractor unit: The tractor unit has the

following major components:
– The truck push rollers
– Material feed system consisting of:
• mix-receiving hopper
• slat conveyors
• material flow gates (usually)
• a pair of augers

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 Asphalt Paver VI

• Truck push rollers

– Located on the front of the paver hopper
– Used to maintain contact with the tires of the
haul truck and to push that truck ahead of the
paver
– The rollers must be clean and free to rotate in
order to allow smooth forward travel of the paver
– If the push rollers are not cleaned periodically
and do not rotate freely, the truck tires will slide
on the rollers and increase the load on the paver.
Moreover, if one roller rotates freely and the
other does not, the paver may be more difficult to
steer 6 - 23

Asphalt Paver VII

• Truck push rollers, continued

– Many pavers are equipped with a truck hitch that
is located underneath or incorporated into the
push rollers on the front of the paver. The
purpose of the hitch is to keep the truck in
contact with the paver and thereby prevent the
truck driver from pulling away from the paver and
inadvertently dumping mix on the pavement in
front of the paver
– Once the truck bed has been emptied of mix, the
truck hitch is withdrawn, and the truck is able to
pull away from the paver
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 Asphalt Paver VIII

• Paver hopper:
– Used as temporary storage area for the asphalt
mix delivered from the haul vehicle, the window
elevator, or the material transfer vehicle
– The amount of mix in the paver hopper should
always be kept at a level above the top of the
flow gates or tunnel openings at the back of the
hopper. In order to keep the conveyors on the
paver full and thus maintain a constant head of
hot mix asphalt in front of paver screed,
providing for a smooth mat behind the screed 6 - 25

Asphalt Paver IX
– The sides or wings of the hopper are movable.
The mix is periodically moved from the sides of
the hopper into the middle of the hopper by
folding the wings (sides) and depositing the mix
on top of the area of the conveyors. This is
performed to avoid allowing mix to stand for a
long period of time in the corners of the hopper
since it will cool and appear as chunks of
material in back of the screed when it passes
through the paver.

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 Asphalt Paver X
• Slat Conveyors:
– Located at the bottom of the paver hopper
– Consist of heavy chains and flight bars
– The slat conveyors are a continuous system,
with the slats being rotated back to the bottom of
the hopper underneath the paver itself.
– Used to carry the asphalt mix from the hopper
through the tunnels on the paver and back to the
augers
– The slat conveyors should never be visible at
any time during the paving operation
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Asphalt Paver XI
• Flow Gates:
– Located at the back of the paver hopper one over
each of the two slat conveyors
– Used to regulate the amount of mix that can be
delivered by each slat conveyor to the
corresponding auger on the paver
– The gates can be moved vertically, either
manually or mechanically (electrically). Depending
on the vertical setting of the gates, more or less
mix is permitted to enter each paving tunnel.
– The paver should be stopped before the tunnel
openings or flow gates are visible
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 Asphalt Paver XIII
• Augers:
– The mix carried to the back of the tractor unit by
the slat conveyors is deposited in front of the
augers
– Like the two slat conveyors, the augers on each
side of the paver operated independently of one
another
– The mix placed in the auger chamber from the slat
conveyors is distributed across the width of the
paver screed by the movement of the two
independent augers
– The amount of mix carried in the auger chamber
should be as constant as possible 6 - 29

Asphalt Paver XIV

• Augers, continued
– The proper depth of material on the augers is at
the center of the auger shaft. The level of
material carried in front of the screed should not
be so low as to expose the lower portion of the
screw conveyor flights. Further, the level mix
delivered to the screed should never be so high
as to cover the upper portion of the auger

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 Asphalt Paver XV
• Screed unit:
– Towed by the tractor unit
– Attached to the tractor unit at only one point on
each side of the paver and “floats” on the HMA.
– provides the initial texture and compaction to the
HMA as it passes out from under the unit
– Establishes the thickness of the asphalt layer
– The concept of free-floating screed allows the
paver screed to average out changes in grade or
elevation experienced by the wheelbase (rubber
tire or crawler tractor) of the tractor unit
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Asphalt Paver XVI

• Screed Heaters:
– The screed is equipped with two or more heaters
or burners to preheat the plate on the bottom of
the screed to the temperature of the HMA being
laid
– The screed must be at nearly the same
temperature as the asphalt material passing
under it to ensure that the mix does not stick to
the screed plate and tear, imparting a rough
texture to the mat
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 Asphalt Paver XVII
• Screed Vibrators:
– Approximately 75 to 85 percent of the theoretical
maximum density of the HMA are obtained when
the mix passes out from under the paver screed

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Asphalt Paver XVIII

• The consistency of the head of material (amount of
HMA) in front of the paver screed is one of the
primary factors affecting the consistency of the
thickness of the layer being constructed
• The head of material in the auger chamber is
directly affected by the operation of the slat
conveyors and augers on each side of the paver
• When the slat conveyors and augers are operating,
the mix is pulled from the paver hopper, through the
tunnel, and is distributed across the front of the
screed by the augers
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 Asphalt Paver XIX

• As long as this flow of material is relatively constant,

the head of material pushing against the screed
remains relatively constant as well, and the mat
being placed has a smooth and consistent texture

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Asphalt Paver XX

• Stringline

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 Asphalt Pavement Compaction
• Compaction is the process by which the asphalt
mix is compressed and reduced in volume
• Compaction is the most important factor in the
performance of a hot mix asphalt pavement
• Adequate compaction of the mix
– Increases fatigue life
– Decreases permanent deformation (rutting)
– Reduces oxidation or aging
– Decreases moisture damage
– Increases strength and stability
– Decreases low temperature cracking. 6 - 37

Asphalt Pavement Compaction II

• Compacting or rolling of the mix should begin

immediately after it is placed by the paver

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 Asphalt Pavement Compaction III
• Three primary types of compaction
equipment:
– Static steel wheel rollers
– Pneumatic tire rollers
– Vibratory steel wheel rollers

Steel wheel roller

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Asphalt Pavement Compaction IV

• Pneumatic tire roller

• Roller tires

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 Asphalt Pavement Compaction V

• Finish roller

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Asphalt Pavement Compaction VI

• Usual sequence of rolling involves
– Breakdown rolling (vibratory or static steel
wheel rollers)
– Intermediate rolling (Pneumatic rollers)
– Final or finish rolling (static steel wheel
rollers)
• Rollers need a number of passes over the
pavement to achieve the required density
• Roller passes must be distributed uniformly
over the width and length of the mat
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 Asphalt Pavement Inspection

• Core test

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Pavement Repair and Rehabilitation

• 4R construction
– Resurfacing: involve surface treatments or
overlays of asphalt or concrete
– Restoration: any work required to return the
highway to an acceptable condition. May require
strengthening subgrade or base courses by soil
stabilization or drainage improvements
– Rehabilitation: same as restoration
– Reconstruction: complete removal of the old
pavement structure and construction of a new
pavement
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 Pavement Repair and Rehabilitation II

• Milling: Mechanical removal of the upper

portion of the pavement
– Used to remove the high points in the existing
surface instead of placing a leveling course
(filling in the low spots)
– Milling can be accomplished in any width
necessary, from 150 mm (6 in.) to more than 4 m
(13 ft)
– The resulting asphalt pavement produced by the
milling process can be hauled back to the asphalt
plant for future recycling
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Pavement Repair and Rehabilitation III

• Recycling:
– Reduces cost
– Reduces the demand for new aggregate sources
– Reduces the problems associated with disposal
of the old material

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Nighttime Paving

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