Environmental performances of roller compacted concrete pavement

The use of RCC is now well established for industrial pavements, and is spreading in North America and recently in Europe for transportation pavement with high mechanical performances requirements such as Tram or Bus platforms. Cost advantage and mechanical performances are two undeniable benefits of this technology. The development of technologies related to usual concrete pavement such as control joints process, curing control, formulation methods, but also the use of high density asphalt pavers make the use of RCC technology realistic for road design.
Moreover new tendencies for re-used materials in particular recycled concrete and the potentiality of the RCCP to incorporate such materials combined with the availability of hydraulic binder with low clinker content are considerable aspects to promote this technology in a larger extent, based on low environmental impact. In that context, the present study focuses on RCC designed with very low clinker content (within cement or hydraulic road binder) and 0 to 50% of recycled concrete aggregates. These concretes were optimized using the compressible packing model (accounting for wall and loosening effect). The analysis of the results is based on the ratio between the mechanical performances (modulus and traction strength obtained after experimental test program) and the environmental impact. This impact was assessed using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis through the Eco-evaluator “ECORCE 2.0” especially developed by LCPC/now IFSTTAR (French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks) for LCA analysis of road design. Two parameters were observed: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and total energy consumption (EC). The good performances of RCCP solutions, in terms of mechanical properties and environmental indicators GHG and EC, are encouraging compared to standard concrete technology (like Concrete with Dowelled Joints), for a given life span.

Author: A. Ezaoui, T. Sedran, L. Miard, D. Mathieu

Section: Concrete

Keywords: concrete roads, roller compacted, recycling, environment indicators