×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

(OP)
I am looking for any help( rules, experience and recomendations)  how to design concrete pavement for tracked vehicles.
Tx

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

The military has a knack for making manuals for everything that has anything to do with military operations, and with so many track vehicles in the military, I would be willing to bet they have some pretty good reference materials.  Check in the Dennis Reimer Digital Library, and you may find what you are looking for.

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

It seems to me that there was a train of thought about using 'no slump' concrete for loading areas for the military. It was about 18" thick. I went to class about 10 years ago on this. Find the concrete paving ass;n web site. they really like it when someone wants to use concrete for surfaces. It is put down with a modified asphalt machine and rolled just like asphalt. But it's not a high speed surface.

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

m8589...
Tracked vehicles present more of a surface abrasion problem than a loading problem.  Designing a concrete pavement for the loads is easy...designing it to resist the pounding it will get from tracked vehicles is another problem.

The concrete should be relatively high strength for durability.  The aggregate should be hard and durable, and as large as you can practicably use in the section you design.  This is to cut down shrinkage.

If you are designing a staging area or such (like the pavement for a heavy equipment dealer or shop), then you should "armor" the joints.  This is done by using steel angle with welded studs on both sides of the joints.  This prevents the tracks from eroding and spalling the joints.

In short, I would use a 5000 to 6000 psi concrete mix, 1" to 1-1/2" nominal size granite or other hard coarse aggregate, a water-cement ratio of less than 0.5, and good control on placement and finishing.  Design the thickness for the loads intended and pay attention to edge conditions as the control for thickness.

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

Ron is spot on AGAIN!!

When you consider that tracked vehicles distribute the vehicular load over a wide area then the load transmitted to the subgrade will be low.  Wheeled vehcles produce large loads over very small contact areas where the tyre touches the road surface.  Consequently, the flexure in the slab and loads on the subgrade increase dramatically by comparison.

Follow Ron's mix design advice.  Go for strong aggregates and don't worry too much about the polished stone value too much if you don't have high speed tyred vehicles on your road whic need to stop in a hurry.

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

m8589,
Hi. Are you sure this is really a requirement? Tracked vehicles were specifically designed to run on soft, muddy and/or marshy terrain and now you want to design a surface where these vehicles are not meant to run. I have heard where it is unavoidable to run the tracked veicles on finished surface, they put rubber track on top of steel track before they start.
The best would be to keep the surface unfinished and not to put any pavement over there.

~flame~

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

(OP)
Thank you all !

I am still verifying requrements. I was told that pavement should be designed for 60-90 kips vehicles. It is unclear how many per day and what is the design time expectancy.

 I do not see how any concrete surface will survive under steel track for a long time.  I am thinking about 12" thick 700 psi flexural strength concrete( f'c=5000psi)  reinforced with steel fiber.  Is there any recomendations of using steel fibers in rigid pavement?

what are advantages of using granite?

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

m8589...your design sounds good.  Yes, the steel fiber will certainly enhance this application.  Check with several of the steel fiber suppliers before you decide on one.  My preference is the short, ductile fibers (Mitchell Fibercon or similar), mainly because I have more experience with those.

Again, pay close attention to aggregate size, type, and water-cement ratio.

Advantage of granite is high abrasion resistance.

Ginger...thanks for the kind words.

Ron

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

The military uses rubber pads that bolt individually into each segment of track.  A lot of labor but the vehicle can still be used off road with the rubber pads attached.  I don't think any pavement will withstand the cutting action of a tank tread.  I have seen lots of damage from just one tank getting on an asphalt road.

DPA

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

If you have enough of the slab and it's thick enough, I've used 3" aggregate in the mix and a superplasticizer to get the slump down... careful for segregation...

intrusion pre-packed, anyone <G>...

RE: Rigid pavement design for tracked vehicles

As indicated in a thread elsewhere, the loading will be around 1-2 ton/sq ft of contact surface.

TTFN

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources