Study on thermal stresses in continuously reinforced concrete pavement

In the structural design of continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP), thermal stresses should be properly taken into account. Thermal strains and temperatures in concrete slabs were measured on test sections of CRCP. Measured strains were divided into axial, curling, and nonlinear components, and each component was examined. It was found that the curling component is predominant in terms of transverse stress, which is important in the structural design. However, the maximum thermal stress is reduced by 25 percent because of the nonlinear component. On the basis of the results, a procedure for estimating the thermal stress in CRCP was proposed.