Determination of early strength characteristics of latex additive cement mortar developed for semi-rigid pavement

Semi-rigid pavement is a composite pavement type that combines the superior features of the flexible pavement, which is widely used in our country, and the rigid pavement, which is still in the trial phase in our country but is more widely used around the world. Semi-rigid pavement is formed by filling the air voids in the porous asphalt with cement mortar. In the first stage of this master's thesis, it is targeted to analyse the early strength performance of the semi-rigid pavement by improving the performance of the semi-rigid pavement of the fluid cement mortar. Early strength performance of fluid cement mortar is a significant factor in terms of determining the traffic opening time of the semi-rigid pavement. Accordingly, mortar formulations have been constituted by using super plasticizer, latex (adherence enhancer), set accelerator and set retarder chemical admixtures at varied rates in the fluid cement mortar. The effect of these chemical additives on the early strength performance of the mortar has been examined. In order to measure the performance of the fluid cement mortar, fluidity test, bleeding test, compression strength test, bending strength test and shrinkage tests have been applied. As a result of these tests, to find the mortar design with the optimum performance VIKOR method, which is one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods has been used. Accordingly, the optimum formulation of the fluid cement mortar, %52.5 water-cement rate, %0.6 super plasticizer, 1 in 60 latex additive and %3.5 set accelerator have been determined. In the second stage of this study, it has been aimed to determine the early strength performance of the semi-rigid pavement by pouring the optimum cement mortar and the control cement mortar into porous asphalt in the large rectangular moulds. Marshall stability, Indirect tensile strength, compressive strength, permeability, freeze-thaw, skid resistance and cantabro tests have been applied to test the performance of the semi-rigid pavement. Significant improvements were observed in the early strength performances of the semi-rigid pavement with the use of latex and set accelerator chemical additives in the fluid cement mortar.