Large scale construction of Bridges & Highways is going on in India and World over.

They are mostly made as rigid pavements using Pavement Quality Concrete (PQC). On
one hand, concrete is a very good and strong material, but it develops cracks due
to temperature, shrinkage, creep etc. Until unless enough precautions are taken,
some cracks do come up on concrete surface. Prominent cracks should be repaired for
better performance and longer life of Highways/pavements. To repair these cracks,
several materials and procedure have been developed. The efficiency of these
materials and procedures depend on the type of crack, weather conditions and
applicator efficiency. In this paper various procedures of crack repair are
described. However, any procedure in general should be first tried on pilot basis
and then depending upon its success, repairing of cracks be done at site. A
procedure of injecting low viscosity Epoxy Material is an excellent material. It is
discussed here and can be used for the repair of cracks.
Why Concrete Cracks
First it is necessary to understand why the concrete cracks. There can be many
reasons why the concrete cracks. These need to be understood from its reaction and
setting pattern point of view. The main reason is improper concrete mix design and
laying / jointing practice related to the inherent nature of concrete to change
volumetrically due to moisture, reaction and thermal effects etc. The incidence of
cracks can be minimized by improving concrete mix design, laying time weather
condition and jointing practices with timely saw cutting and properly managed
curing. Concrete roads, properly designed and constructed, should require little,
if any, maintenance over its design life. Still, proper and timed maintenance may
extend the life of the pavement even beyond designed service life. Concrete
pavements undergo stress and strain due to traffic and climatic effects. However,
as long as sub grade is properly compacted, any variation/change in support (due to
moisture-changes) has little effect on performance. Proper weather during
construction and laying / jointing practice will eliminate most premature
distresses. Otherwise, some shrinkage cracking may appear before the road is opened
to traffic. Normally, there is no reason why a concrete road should not perform
well during the designed life span if properly laid and cared through maintenance.
Identification and Location of Cracks on PQC Surface
A. Identification of Affected Area The relevant pavement is surveyed and effected
portion marked with a marker. The area can be struck with a hand held hammer to
further qualify and quantify the crack. The dull and hollow sound is emitted from
the unsound concrete whereas metallic sound is emitted from sound concrete. The
boundary of area to be treated should be marked and as far as possible rectangular
and normally about 50 mm should be taken into the sound concrete to make sure that
all unsound concrete is included. Cracks and its location can be identified from
top surface of PQC and some from sides. Then judge the extent of cracking in
concrete by any one of following methods.
1. Visual Survey of the effected PQC Surface. This should preferably be done after
rains or after washing the surface with water.
2. Measure the width of cracks at top of PQC surface by using thickness gauges.
3. NDT: Non destructively estimate the extend of cracking by using NDT technique.
Commonly adopted NDT technique is Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity Measurements using UPV
meter.
4. Core Drilling: Take cores at the apparent location of cracks which are seen from
top, upto full depth of PQC. Generally cores can be taken of 100 or 150 mm in
diameter.
B. Classification of Cracks and Repair Methods The cracks may be classified in
following categories:
a. Small Hair Cracks (< 1mm) - seen mainly at top.
b. Medium / Partial or half depth cracks
c. Full depth cracks
d. Many checker cracks in any one panel of PQC.
e. Pot holes and Corner damages
f. Settlement of panel or Multiple cracks near expansion joints.
Such Surface Cracks develops in PQC due to temperature difference, late joint
cutting, and defective curing of PQC etc. The cracks will allow water / mud /debris
going into the cracks and widens them further.
Medium or Full depth cracks
Some typical Medium or Full depth cracks are shown in Figures 1.
Figure 1: Typical Cracks in PQC Pavement Surface
Settlement of panel or Multiple cracks near expansion joints:
Such cracks normally develop because of poor compaction or poor Concrete Mix
Design. Some typical cracks are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Typical Panel Settlement or near panel Cracks
Visually examine all such cracks and decide which crack is to be repaired on the
basis of width, depth and its pattern. In general hair or micro cracks do not
affect much the structural integrity of PQC much. Thus remedial works or repair of
such cracks may not be necessary. However, partial / half depth cracks should be
repaired. About full depth cracks and many checker cracks, it must be decided on
the case to case basis after looking at the site and analyzing the condition
depending upon its width, length and number of cracks in a panel as to what
treatment is to be given.
Repair Materials for Crack
The material, techniques / System for repair the PQC cracks should be such which
will have durability of minimum 10 � 15 years or as per the designed life of
pavement. Otherwise water may penetrate from these cracks and reach sub-grade and
embankment level causing settlement. This will ultimately damage the pavement.
Hence it is necessary that a methodology and guidelines for the repairs &
rehabilitation of such cracks in PQC be developed. Normally the repair material
should remain flexible enough to accommodate anticipated expansion & contraction,
water-tightness etc. Repaired cracks should not be rigid otherwise the cracks may
appear again in the same panel at adjacent panels. Following are some of the
material used in crack repair.
1. Very Low Viscosity Epoxy Material
2. Epoxy Modified Mortar
3. Polyurethane based coating over Epoxy Mortar
4. Elastomeric Concrete
5. Fiber Reinforced Concrete.
Details of some of these materials are given here:
1. Very Low Viscosity Epoxy Material It is a free flow epoxy grout material
designed for grouting gaps of low width like 0.5 to 10 mm. This epoxy repair
compound or free flowing epoxy resinous grouting material or similar product is a
very low viscosity liquid of around 10 poise or so. Epoxy compound like RESICRETE
of SWC or CONVEXTRA EP10 (M) of FORSROC which is normally supplied as two-component
product consisting of base and hardener can be used. This should normally have
viscosity of 2-4 poise at ambient temperature. The Compressive strength of such
material should be at least 60-70 MPa or 1 � times the Compressive strength of
concrete used for PQC.
2. Epoxy Modified Mortar Epoxy mortar is a common material used for repair of
concrete surfaces in general, especially for the pot holes in rigid pavements.
However, 100 % epoxy based mortar is little brittle in the long run; hence in case
of repairs of pavements, its modified products should be used such that the
resultant material is not rigid. The Epoxy Mortar we can modified by:
o Adding about 5 % Poly-sulphide polymer in the epoxy resin as it basically needs
to modify the formulations of epoxy based mortar. Many companies have started
manufacturing Epoxy Poly-sulphide mixed based mortar.
o It will not only improve the life of mortar but also it gives flexibility which
is required in the repair mortar used for the pavements.
o By adding Poly-sulphide polymer, it improves the UV resistance.
3. Polyurethane based coating over Epoxy Mortar As epoxy mortars are non-uv
resistance, but still it is a good high strength material, so use polyurethane
based coating on the repaired surface of mortar which is exposed to UV or direct
sunlight. This coating will protect the existence of epoxy mortar till the time the
mortar remain intact & not start to loose its property of non-brittleness. PU
coating should normally be of about 300 micron thickness.
4. Elastomeric Concrete This is an epoxy modified cement concrete used in repairs
not only in PQC crack repairs but also in structures and concrete surface. For PQC
Crack repairs Elastomeric concrete is a useful material.
5. Fiber Reinforced Concrete Fiber reinforced concrete is a concrete having small
size aggregate (say 6 mm or so) or Cement sand mortar. It is mixed with any one of
the different type of fiber given below which are generally used in construction.
Poly propylene Fibers are more appropriate for this purpose. Though, there are
several types of fibers available as given below. Normally fiber concrete can also
be used as a thin top layer or bearing surface over the cracked PQC pavement after
treatment of cracks.
a. Steel Fibers
b. Carbon fibers
c. Glass Fibers
d. Poly propylene Fibers etc.
Repair Method of PQC in Pavements
Repairs can be classified into following categories:
a. Partial Depth repairs (Transverse as well as Longitudinal) of PQC.
b. Repairs of longitudinal cracks by using U type anchorages / stitching.
c. Repairs of the pavements especially for the areas where aggregates are exposed
due to various reasons like after concreting sudden rain started or due to more
tear & wear of concrete etc.
d. Re-surfacing of Pavements by Fiber Reinforced Concrete / Mortar for betterment.
e. Cross Stitching / stapling of panels / cracks: Repair the cracks by putting
dowel bars with caps & tie bars so that it can have some space to have movements.
f. Repairs of Potholes and corner spalls in concrete pavements etc
Repair of minor Cracks (<1 mm wide)
These are very low (small) width cracks or hairline cracks. Such cracks generally
do not affect the performance of road surface. Thus these cracks, unless the
severity level increases, need not be repaired. Further observe these cracks over a
period of time for enlargement.
Medium Cracks (generally 1 to 5 mm wide)
If cracks are not moving then a very low viscosity epoxy resin may be used for its
repair with or without fine sand to bond the crack faces. V shaped �joint wells�
are made with 3 to 5 mm saw blade. Also make 8 to 10 mm diameter grout holes at
regular interval. Then pump the epoxy bonded into holes using a grout gun.
Partial Depth Repairs
The spalling of concrete occurs near the joints mainly due to adjacent slab load
transfer related movement at the joint particularly in summer. The spalling will
occur frequently in mid slab locations and other locations mainly due to high slump
due to w/c ratio, poor construction or failure of earlier done repairs. Spalls are
a localized problem and can be easily repaired with partial depth repair methods.
Full Depth Repairs
The full depth repairs are necessitated due to Transverse Crack in slab in full
panel width. This crack may be in one lane or both the lanes. The reasons for such
crack are:
? Locking of Transverse Joint:
? The joint does not function due to non-functioning of dowel bars. These dowel
bars either get misaligned during construction or slurry gets into sleeves and
prevents their movement.
? The intermediate crack may be caused due to too much resistance offered by rough
surface of underlying DLC.
? The crack may also develop due to thermal changes coupled with large joint
spacing.
In all such cases where cracks are more harmful, then the PQC Panel should be
examined carefully, if the panel is to be repaired or removed. If it has to be
repaired than use the technique of cross stitching method. However, if that portion
of panel is to be removed and then recast the panel as indicated by Removal of
Existing Unsound Concrete. Some of these repair methods are described here.
I. Repair By Grouting of Low Viscosity Epoxy Material
a. Equipments for Repair Depending upon the method of repair the following
equipments may be used.
? Grouting Pump of capacity about 5-10 Kg/cm2.
? Mechanical Grout Mixer
? Air Compressor
? Injection Ports.
? Hand Chisel, trowel, etc.
b. Preparation for Crack Repair
? On both sides of crack, the side edges be slightly chiseled to give a V-shape. If
required do chiseling until a hard concrete is encountered.
? Remove loose material from crack area and blow out the dust and debris from the
gap of crack by using a compressor or air blower.