Case Study of US 75: Assessment of Full Depth Repair Effectiveness

Full depth repair (FDR) is a widely used repair method for repairing distresses in concrete pavement. FDR typically includes restoring load transfer to the adjacent, unrepaired slab and once it is placed it is expected to perform similarly to the original pavement. However, current standard methods of FDR have only limited effect and often yield insufficient long term performance since they fail to address the deterioration ongoing in the adjacent slabs. It seems that standard plans uniformly recommend replacing weakened base or subgrade material with better material however, they only treat the area under the patched section, while the condition of adjacent sections continue to suffer because of the effects of infiltrated water and weakened base and subgrade. Moreover, details rarely call for resealing of the joint after placement of the repair which is a basic preventative strategy to reduce distresses in the adjacent concrete pavement as well as the patch. A major test of FDR for jointed concrete pavement on US 75 in Sherman, Texas is studied to evaluate FDR effectiveness and recommend possible improvements. Sample sections were classified by visual inspection into good and poor areas containing old and newly placed patches. Each section was tested to ascertain the repaired patched and existing adjacent pavement conditions using non destructive test (NDT).