Paver abrasion resistance under intensive traffic

Engineers and architects involved with the construction of roads and malls surfaced with segmental pavers are faced with the problem of evaluating durability under the pavers' operating environment. The typical default procedure adopted for measuring durability is abrasion resistance. There is no single accepted methodology for evaluating paver abrasion resistance in either Australia or Europe. In Australia a draft Australian/New Zealand Standard has been developed and in Europe, prENs are presently being formulated which may assist to solve this problem. Also both clay and concrete pavers should be evaluated using consistent test procedures which reflect the intended end use. The project described in the paper reviews and evaluates the proposed Australian and European abrasion guidelines and makes some recommendations for modifications to those documents. Reference is also made to existing current Australian methods for measuring abrasion resistance.