Highway Maintenance &

Rehabilitation

Dr. TALEB M. AL-ROUSAN

Highway Maintenance Definitions

 Maintenance: Is the routine work

performed to keep a pavement, under
normal conditions of traffic and normal
forces of nature, as nearly as possible in
its as constructed condition.
 Maintenance: The function of preserving,
repairing, and restoring a highway and
keeping it in condition for safe,
convenient, and economical use.
 Highway Maintenance

 It includes both physical maintenance

activities such as sealing, patching, filling
joints, and so forth and traffic service
activities including painting pavement
markings, removing snow, ice, and litter.
 Rehabilitation: restoring or betterment of
roadway such as resurfacing.
Highway Maintenance Programs

Are designed to offset the effects of

weather, vandalism, vegetation growth,
and traffic wear and damage, as well as
deterioration due to the effects of aging,
material failures, and design and
construction faults.
Why Maintenance is Necessary

 All Pavements require maintenance.

 Stresses producing minor effects are
constantly working in all pavements.
 Stresses are:
 Change in temperature and moisture;
 Traffic;
 Small movements in underlying or adjacent earth.
 Distresses are visible evidence of pavement wear
(i.e. they are the end result of the wear process
which begins when construction ends).
 Water lines and other utilities are major area of
pavement maintenance.
Pavement Condition Life Cycle
 Importance & Challenge of
Highway Maintenance
 Protect investments made in highways.
 Economic & safety of public road system.
 Challenges:
 increased roads (additional mileage of travel),
 vehicle sizes, and traffic.
 Traveling public expect higher level of
maintenance.
 Size of maintenance budget.
 Maintenance Management

 Purpose: to capture information about

maintenance activities performed &
resources expanded.
 Maintenance management systems do
not manage programs, reduce cost or
improve performance, rather they
provide maintenance engineers with
the information and analytical tools
needed to allow them to do so.
 Maintenance Management Cont.

 Elements of maintenance management programs:

 Development of an annual work program (defining
activities, quantities, establish performance standards,
road inventory & inspection, estimate size of the work
program).
 Budgeting & allocating resources (labor, equipment,
Materials).
 Work authorization & control (various administration
levels).
 Scheduling (balance of workload throughout the year).
 Performance evaluation (work progress & productivity).
 Fiscal control (monitor status of expenditures yearly).
 Maintenance Operations

 Road surfaces
 Shoulders & approaches.
 Roadsides
 Bridges, tunnels, & drainage structures.
 Traffic controls & safety devices.
 Control of snow & ice.
Maintenance of Road Surfaces

 Aggregate road surfaces

 Failures due to: improper drainage, poorly
mixed materials, inadequate foundation.
 Repairs:
 Patching
 Blading

 Scarifying & resurfacing (when areas to be

patched are numerous).
 Stabilization.

 Bituminous surface treatment

Maintenance of Road Surfaces
Cont.
 Bituminous surfaces
 Failures due to: weathering, failure of base
or subgrade due to material quality or
compaction or improper drainage.
 Repairs:
 Patching
 Paint patching

 Scarifying

 Resealing.

 Non skid surface treatment

Maintenance of Road Surfaces
Cont.
 PCC surfaces
 Repairs:
 Filling & sealing of joints & cracks
 Repairing spalled, scaled, & map cracked areas.

 Patching areas where failure has occurred.

 Repairing areas damaged by settlement &

pumping.
 Treating buckled pavements.
 Maintenance of Shoulders &
Approaches
 Well graded gravel shoulder : blading to proper
slope and filling ruts or worn out materials.
 Turf shoulders: filling holes & ruts, blading,
seeding, mow & clean shoulders (weed control).
 Approaches: include public side roads, private
driveways, ramps, speed change lanes, &
turnouts.
 Approach maintenance is similar to shoulder
maintenance + extra efforts to maintain potholes,
ruts, and other types of deterioration.
Maintenance of Roadsides
 Roadside: include area between traveled surface & the limit of the
right-of-way (medians, roadside parks, right-of-way fences, picnic
tables, ..etc.
 Vegetation management & control (include mowing, weed
eradication & control, seeding, planting vegetation, & care of
trees & shrubs).
 Mowing is done to provide sight distance, improve drainage,
reduce fire hazards, & improve appearance of the roadway.
 Seeding & planting vegetation are important for prevention of
erosion.
 Maintenance of rest areas.
 Litter control.
Maintenance of Bridges, Tunnels,
& Drainage Structures
 Bridges: Maintenance is needed to minimize
deterioration or repair damage caused by accidents,
floods, or other unforeseen events.
 Steel bridges: cleaned & painted to prevent erosion.
 Concrete bridge decks deterioration: Corrosion of
reinforcement bars due to penetration of water &
deicing salts or chemicals.
 Bridge decks with minor deterioration: patch with
special concrete.
 Bridge decks with major deterioration: Overlay or
remove & construct
Maintenance of Bridges, Tunnels,
& Drainage Structures
 Tunnels
 Special attention areas:
 Supports (check for decays).
 Tunnel walls & ceilings (check for leaks).
 Portals (free from loose rocks).
 Lighting (for visibility)
 Ventilation
 Drainage structures
 Should be kept in good working conditions.
 Surface drainage, ditches, & culverts.
Maintenance of Traffic Control &
Safety Devices
 Safety devices:
Guardrails, barriers, impact attenuators,
pedestrian overpasses & underpasses,
fence to restrict access of pedestrians &
animals.
 Safety devices should be frequently &
systematically inspected & repaired.
 Control of Snow & Ice

 Measures taken for preparing for snow

removal are:
 Necessary equipments (large trucks, snow
plows, power graders.
 Stockpiling of ice-control chemicals.

 Placing of snow fences, snow guides.

 Organization arrangements
 Pavement Rehabilitation
 Proper maintenance extend pavement life.
 However, best-maintained pavements will
deteriorate with time and will need
rehabilitation.
 Conventional rehabilitation:
 Reconstruct with all new material
 Patch & overlay with new wearing surface.
 Due to high construction cost, new methods of
rehabilitation raised:
 Pavement Milling (See table 21.4)
 Pavement Recycling
 Pavement Recycling
 Involves the following:
 Remove existing pavement fully or partially.
 Reduce reclaimed material to suitable size.
 Blending reclaimed materials with virgin aggregate & liquid
asphalt.
 Relaying the material as base, binder, or surface course
 Advantages of Hot mix Recycling:
 Economy
 Conservation of national resources.
 Improvement of the structural strength of the pavement with
little or no change in thickness.
 Correction of existing deficiencies in the pavement mix.