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Road Rehabilitation

Project information

Project name

„Corso Giovanni Agnelli”

Location

Torino, IT

Principal

City of Torino

Construction time

June until July 2005

Project details

Project description and challenge

In 2006 the Olympic Winter Games took place in Torino, Italy. At that time the “Corso Giovanni Agnelli”, which is one of the main roads passing the Olympic stadium, was greatly in need of rehabilitation. The existing asphalt pavement showed severe cracking where almost every joint from subjacent concrete slabs had reflected through the asphalt overlay. Therefore, the city of Torino decided to carry out a rehabilitation, which was undertaken in June 2005. Over a length of approx. 500 m an asphalt reinforcement was used. In order to obtain a comparison, a second area was rehabilitated without reinforcement.

Solution

The use of the geogrid has thitherto completely prevented the propagation of reflective cracks developing from the expansion joints of the concrete slabs. This example shows, again, that geogrids considerably delays the propagation of reflective cracks. It also proves a life extension factor of 3-4, compared to an unreinforced solution, resulting in a considerable reduction in cost of asphalt pavement maintenance. The use of the geogrid is a technical proven and economically solution.

Benefits

In May 2006 the first assessment of the road took place.

The reinforced area did not show any cracking, however in the unreinforced area, first signs of cracking were visible over the expansion joints of the concrete base.

In July 2009, some 4 years after the rehabilitation, the second assessment of the road took place. Then, the geosynthetic reinforced area still did not show any cracking. In contrast, almost every expansion joint from the concrete slabs had reflected through the new overlay in the unreinforced area.

In August 2010, the unreinforced area has been completely rehabilitated again, whilst the geogrid reinforced area is still in an excellent condition.