A Study on Enhancement of Properties of Concrete by Vacuum Dewatering Method for Construction of Rigid Pavements and its Cost Evaluation

Abstract

The road building agencies in India are promoting construction of concrete pavements
in a big way due to its ability in handling complex stresses from vehicle loads and temperature. As per
the Indian Road Congress guidelines for design of concrete pavements, M40 grade concrete is to be used
for the concrete slab and accordingly, the approximate slab thickness shall be varying between 250mm
to 320mm. Higher the concrete grade results in further reduction of pavement thickness, temperature
stresses and depth of joints. Therefore, in this study, to increase the grade of the concrete,
VacuumDewatered Concrete (VDC) technology is adopted in place of conventional method of
pavement construction. The properties of concrete such as compressive strength, flexural
strength and split tensile strength were found in both the methods and compared. The test
results depicted that all the properties discussed above are higher in case of VDC method as
compared to the conventional method of construction.