Roads - Flexible and semi-rigid materials

First of all, pavement layers must withstand the repeated action of rolling loads and, more particularly, those associated with heavy vehicle traffic which, as stated in standard NFP 98-086, result in four types of damage:

"surface wear of the wearing course due to tangential stresses; rutting due to creep of the bound layers under the effect of vertical stresses and tangential stresses; fatigue of the treated layers, caused by their bending under the action of loads; accumulation of permanent deformations at the level of the base or unbound layers".

They must also provide motorists with a good level of service in terms of the following characteristics:

• uni ;

• adhesion ;

• rolling noise ;

• frequency of maintenance operations, particularly penalizing in urban and suburban areas.

This article does not deal with the "concrete material" used in the construction of "rigid pavements", as it is dealt with extensively in numerous articles in the "Construction" treatise. This article will therefore be limited, following the terminology of article [C 4 316] , to materials used in the construction of flexible and semi-rigid pavements. For reasons of space, manufacturing and laying equipment will not be covered.