Design and construction of high-performance surface textures for precast concrete pavements: A flexible formwork and 3D printing assisted texturing method

Surface textures are critical to the skid resistance and noise reduction of precast concrete pavements (PCPs). However, due to the constraints of current texturing technologies, only limited types of simple textures are produced for PCP. To facilitate the design and construction of superior textures for PCP, a novel texturing method assisted with 3D printing (3DP) technology is developed in this study. The process begins with using 3DP technology to construct the solid molds with customized textures. Subsequently, liquid silicone rubber is poured into solid molds to produce flexible formworks. The solidified flexible formworks are then employed to imprint textures onto the PCPs surfaces. To assess the impact of textures on the surface performance of PCPs, seven distinct texture designs were created and evaluated for their skid resistance and noise reduction performance. The findings reveal that texture configuration significantly influences PCPs' surface performance. Additionally, a full-scale trial section of PCPs was constructed to determine the practicality of this texturing technique, and the associated costs were analyzed as well. It is found that the textures created on the trial section of PCPs are of high quality, and the expenses incurred by this texturing method are competitive with those of traditional techniques. Therefore, this texturing method is promising to reform the design and construction of surface textures for PCPs. • A 3D printing assisted texturing technique is developed for precast concrete pavements. • Surface textures significantly affect the skid resistance and noise reduction performance of precast concrete pavements. • The associated costs of the novel texturing technique are competitive with those of traditional texturing techniques.