Prestressed Precast Concrete Pavement: A Case Study

One of the major problems with the construction of concrete pavement in India is obtaining the required quality. The quality of Cast-In-Place concrete pavement is difficult to maintain due to the site conditions. To address this issue, a 500 m trial stretch of Prestressed Precast Concrete Pavement (PPCP) is developed in Inner Ring Road, Nagpur. The design of PPCP is performed by a simple spreadsheet considering the cumulative fatigue damage caused to the pavement over its design life. The spreadsheet includes the effect of temperature, prestress, axle loads, and modulus of subgrade reaction for calculating the thickness of the pavement and can be useful for professional designers. The size of the panels for the trial section is 2.625 m x 4 m and 3.5 m x 4 m. The panels are interconnected using a sliding slot dowel model and a top slot dowel model. The construction aspects and design revisions required to incorporate the site difficulties have been discussed in the paper.