A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, SCHOOL OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES ARBA MINCH UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ROAD AND TRANSPORT ENGINEERING

Abstract

Rigid pavement is a type of pavement constructed from cement, fine aggregate, coarse aggregate, and water, in which vehicle loads are transferred to subgrade soil by the flexural strength of the pavement. Due to its high initial construction cost and excellent traffic carrying capacity, it was typically considered only for heavily trafficked roads. Due to this, the construction of rigid pavement was not well practiced in Ethiopia. In order to overcome the initial cost of materials for rigid pavements construction, partially replacing environmentally friendly materials has a significant effect. In this research C-45 concrete grade rigid pavement were designed and determined their performance in the laboratory by replacing of coarse aggregate with 0%, 10%, 20%, and 30% recycled asphalt pavement and also replacement of cement by waste clinical ash with 4%, 8.2%, and 12.4% individually. In addition to that, rigid pavements were constructed from combination of the two recycled materials together in matrix form and their properties were determined. The compressive strength test, split tensile strength test, and flexural strength tests were performed in the laboratory for the 7th , 14th , and 28th day curing concretes and ultrasonic pulse velocity test, rebound hammer test and water absorption capacity were determined after 28th day curing. In addition to that resistance to sulfate attack of rigid pavement were performed after the 56th day curing period. Individually, 4% of waste clinical ash and 10% of recycled asphalt pavement in rigid pavement construction have significant experimental performance, and the combination of 4% waste clinical ash and 10% recycled asphalt pavement shows significant experimental results in the properties of rigid pavement.