Evaluation of plain and fiber reinforced concrete properties for the pavement structural design applications

As one of the important infrastructure facilities, concrete pavements are commonly used due to their several benefits, and they have a considerable impact on the environment during their construction and use phases. The properties of construction materials and the design approach used greatly affect the overall performance of concrete pavements. This study aimed to improve the current practices in concrete pavement engineering by improving the efficiencies of materials, as well as the design and evaluation approaches in use. To achieve this goal, performance of various concrete mixtures measured under different loading scenarios and numerical analyses were conducted. In the scope of this dissertation, new testing methodologies have been developed to measure the cyclic loading performance of concrete mixtures with reduced variation and to measure the effect of reversed cyclic bending loading on the fatigue performance of concrete. Additionally, two-stage mixing approach employed for the first time to improve the performance of fiber reinforced concrete by enhancing fiber-matrix interface. Moreover, the effects of using of discrete structural fibers and recycled aggregates for concrete pavement applications extensively studied through experiments and numerical analyses. Based on the results obtained, recommendations for the future research and design works were provided.