Stress analyses of conventional and lightweight concrete road pavement under temperature changes and traffic load using finite element method

As in the whole world, in our country, RCC, jointed unreinforced, jointed reinforced and continuously reinforced concrete road pavement applications continue to increase. Despite the increase in the use of concrete road pavements, it is seen that different crack situations in the pavements continue. Daily temperature changes create extra stress in addition to the wheel load for the concrete road pavement. Joints are cut to reduce these stresses and to prevent random cracks in the concrete road pavement. However, it has been observed that joint cuts bring additional costs and significantly weaken the pavement in the cut areas. Within the scope of this thesis, lightweight concrete and traditional concrete data were taken as input for the finite element method and stress analyses of concrete road pavements with different thickness, width and length were performed under daily temperature differences and wheel loads with the ANSYS finite element method. It was found that a road pavement made of lightweight concrete created lower stress and deformation values together with mechanical and density values. In addition, it was observed that the same effect would occur in the tensile stress values that would occur in the pavement if the joint cutting depth was 1/3 or 1/4 of the pavement as well as 1/8.