Section 11: Retro-fitting Concrete Shoulders
Most of the rigid pavements constructed before
the mid-1980s did not include a tied concrete shoulder. Until 1986,
the
AASHTO Guide for the Design of Pavement Structures
did
not consider or give credit for the inclusion of a tied concrete
shoulder. Rarely were tied concrete shoulders included. It is possible
to infer what the performance may have been by examining the urban
freeways where frequent entrance and exit ramps encouraged the heavy
volumes of truck traffic to use an interior lane where the lane
edges were supported by another PCC travel lane. The performance of
these interior travel lanes with heavy volumes of truck traffic
has greatly exceeded expectations. The reasons for the tremendous
success of truck travel lanes supported at the edge by concrete pavement
could be attributed to a combination of structural support from
the tied concrete pavement reducing stresses in the travel lane,
or from the tied concrete pavement helping to keep water from infiltrating
into the base. Construction procedures for retro-fitting a pavement
with concrete shoulders are identical to procedures for widening
an existing concrete pavement. For more information refer to Chapter
9, Section 7.