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Multiple European and American concrete overlay experiences presented during EUPAVE workshop

26/10/2022

On Wednesday 19^th October 2022, EUPAVE held at Hôtel Le Châtelain in Brussels its 7th workshop on Best Practices in Concrete Paving. The theme for this year was “Concrete Overlays”.

It was organised as a hybrid event, using a professional sound and video-system from the Dutch “Betonhuis” (“Concrete House”).

A concrete overlay is a concrete paving layer that is placed over an existing pavement. When properly designed and constructed, concrete overlays provide cost-effective, long-life, sustainable pavement rehabilitation options for a broad range of pavement types, existing pavement conditions, and project needs. This workshop gave an overview of the basic principles of concrete overlay design and construction and European and American practical experiences.

Mr. Luc Rens, Managing-Director of EUPAVE, opened the workshop and welcomed the participants.

He introduced EUPAVE, its mission and gave an overview of the previous workshops on Best Practices. He briefly introduced the EUPAVE’s latest publication “Guide for Design of Concrete Overlays” drafted by Mark Snyder.

Then, Mr. Snyder, Ph.D., P.E., Pavement Engineering and Research Consultant, LLC, presented the Guide to the participants. The publication includes a description of the different type of concrete overlays, an explanation of concrete overlay design and construction, amongst other topics.

You can find the Guide here.

The second presentation was on “Spanish experiences: a concrete overlay for a quarry road and a roundabout” by Sergio Carrascón, former Director North Est, IECA. Sergio showed different projects realised in Spain including the work done at La Jonquera (Girona, Spain) and the structural rehabilitation of pavement in 4 roundabouts and the rehabilitation of pavement done at Morata de Jalón (Zaragoza, Spain).

Jeroen de Vrieze, Advisor Promotion and Market Statistics at Betonhuis gave a presentation on the “Dutch experiences: overlays of cycle paths with fibre reinforced concrete by contractor Schagen Infra”.

After the coffee break, Lukas Eberhardsteiner, Assistant Professor at TU Wien, presented the “Austrian design method and catalogue for bonded concrete overlays”.

Ozgur Yaman, Professor at the Middle East Technical University of Ankara gave a well-illustrated presentation of “Overlay applications in the bus rapid transit lanes of Istanbul”. Mr. Yaman explained the biggest challenge they encountered was related to the construction issues.

Finally, Luc Rens, Managing Director of EUPAVE, concluded with the “Belgian experiences – thin and conventional inlays and overlays”.

The presentations were followed by a Q&A from both the live audience and the on-line participants. For the in-person participants, the afternoon ended with a pleasant networking cocktail.

The recording and presentations of the workshop are available for registered participants.

We would like to thank:

• All speakers for their efforts in preparing the presentations and the willingness to share their knowledge and experience
• All participants, live or online, for showing your interest in EUPAVE and the concrete pavement technology
• All our Members & Partners for the support to our association
• And a special thanks to our colleague Jeroen de Vrieze and the Dutch Betonhuis for the use of the audio-visual system.

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