An Analysis of Concrete Pavement Heaving based on Swell Potential Tests

Abstract

This article presents an approach for heave prediction of a pavement surface caused by the swelling of expansive soil layers underneath. This research project used a road with heavily damaged concrete pavement in Mae Moh District, Lampang Province as a case study. Activities performed in this research included were subsoil investigation and collecting soil samples by thin-wall tubes, laboratory testing for moisture content of those collected soil samples, free swell test, swell pressure test, and estimating the heave of the pavement surface using those testing results. The laboratory testing and the calculation reveal that the damages of the road was caused by the swelling of the underneath expansive soil and the heave prediction based on the laboratory testing results was close to the actual heave of the pavement. Therefore, the approach employed in this analysis is capable of surface heave estimation of other pavements.