Alberta Transportation’s First Concrete Pavement Preservation and Rehabilitation Project

In 2010, Alberta Transportation completed its first concrete pavement preservation and rehabilitation project on Highway 1 through Medicine Hat. Preservation and rehabilitation were seen as the best options to treat the sections of concrete due to their existing condition and constraining infrastructure and despite the fact that the initial design was for an asphalt overlay. Given that Alberta Transportation owns few concrete pavements and has little experience with concrete pavement preservation or rehabilitation, this project presented numerous unique challenges. These included treatment option identification, treatment design and specification development. The treatments that were ultimately used included diamond grinding, dowel bar retrofit and cross-stitching. The project involved undertaking these treatments while maintaining traffic on this busy section of the Trans-Canada highway. This paper will discuss the details of this project from initiation to treatment selection to design and construction. Performance of the treatments to date will also be presented.