Curling Failures of Steel‐Fiber‐Reinforced Concrete Slabs

Abstract

This paper describes an investigation of curling problems in steel‐fiber‐reinforced‐concrete airport pavements. All the pavements were relatively thin with large plan dimensions. Analysis showed that only small amounts of differential shrinkage between the top and bottom of the slab could cause curling in these large, relative thin slabs. The most likely cause of the differential shrinkage was early‐age shrinkage due to some combination of autogeneous and temperature‐induced shrinkage, possibly compounded at later ages by drying shrinkage. When these curled slabs were opened to traffic, they cracked, forming corner breaks. Improper joint spacing was also found to be the likely cause of longitudinal cracking that developed at three airports. Problems with curling can be reduced by using low‐friction interfaces between the slab and underlying material, but the most reliable method to avoid the curling problems would be to reduce joint spacing.