Companion Guide to Video June 2018

www.fhwa.dot.gov/federal-aidessentials

With shrinking budgets, increasing traffic 

volumes and loads, and the focus on 

sustainability, the need has never been greater 

for engineered strategies to preserve and 

maintain the nation's concrete pavement. 

Numerous national studies overwhelmingly

conclude that compared to conventional 

overlay treatments, a long-term strategy of 

applying timely and appropriate preventative 

maintenance treatments maintains good 

pavement conditions for longer periods of time. 

With a large part of an agency’s budget going to 

pavement maintenance, transportation 

professionals must ask themselves: 

• What preventative maintenance 

treatments can be used on concrete 

pavement? 

• When are we applying them? 

• How effective are our efforts in 

maintaining pavement condition as well 

as minimizing costly and disruptive 

rehabilitation and reconstruction 

activities? And 

• What does your agency do when it 

encounters cracking, joint 

deficiencies, surface defects, or 

other distresses, such as water 

bleeding and pumping? 

While the most effective preservation 

treatment depends on local conditions—such as 

traffic, weather patterns, pavement materials, 

and the community’s perceptions and 

expectations of a smooth ride—there are five 

commonly used concrete pavement treatments.

In order of worsening pavement condition and 

the cost of the treatment, they are:

• Joint resealing and crack sealing,

• Diamond grinding,

• Grooving,

Federal-aid Program Overview

Concrete Pavement (PCCP) Preservation

Preservation techniques to extend concrete pavement life.
Federal-aid Essentials for Local Public Agencies

• Load-transfer restoration and cross 

stitching, and 

• Partial and full-depth repairs

Let's review each treatment and then see how 

one local agency applied these treatments on a 

maintenance project.

Let’s begin with joint resealing and crack 

sealing. When water and incompressible 

materials enter joints and cracks that are not 

sealed, the joints fill with debris and can cause 

corner breaks, spalling, faulting, substantial slab 

movements, and problems for the whole 

pavement structure. 

When a sealant, typically made from either 

modified asphalt or a silicone compound, is 

placed in joints and cracks, it prevents water 

and debris from entering. Limiting water 

infiltration protects the underlying pavement 

layers and reduces the detrimental effects of 

cycles of freeze and thaw and subgrade 

softening. The greatest benefit of joint sealing is 

realized when the pavement is not severely 

deteriorated.

Rough road surfaces from slab faulting or wheel 

path rutting increase vehicle operating costs, 

diminishes safety, and may lead to expensive 

slab repairs in the future — especially where 

water is present. Diamond grinding can address 

these conditions. Diamond grinding removes a 

thin layer of concrete—typically a quarter 

inch—to restore smoothness and enhance tire 

to surface friction. 

Poor friction characteristics increases 

hydroplaning and related accidents. To 

improve friction characteristics, grooving 

creates narrow, discrete grooves in the 

pavement surface to remove water from the 

contact surface.

Repeated heavy loads on roads can cause a 

reduction of load-transfer efficiency between 

pavement slabs, resulting in spalling, faulting, 

and slab cracking. Load transfer restoration and 

cross stitching are two treatments proven to 

delay further deterioration of the concrete. 

Load transfer restoration reinforces joints or 

cracks with a dowel bar or other load-transfer 

device; whereas cross stitching prevents crack 
Federal-aid Essentials for Local Public Agencies

movement by locking two pieces of pavement 

together. Load-transfer restoration and cross 

stitching is most cost effective for larger 

projects with numerous cracks since this is 

highly specialized work.

Where existing load-transfer devices are still 

functional but spalling and surface deterioration 

exist in the upper third of the slab, partial-depth 

repairs may be used. When applying this 

treatment, look for repair and bonding material 

based on overall effectiveness, cost, and the 

speed in which the materials cure so traffic can 

resume as quickly as possible.

In cases where deterioration exists below the 

upper third of the slab, agencies may elect to 

perform a full-depth repair or slab replacement. 

While the timely and appropriate application of 

this treatment can extend pavement 

performance beyond ten years, it is costly.

Now let’s see how one county applied some of 

these concrete pavement treatments to three 

miles of a distressed concrete arterial roadway. 

At the start of the project, the project engineer 

reviewed the road data compiled over the past 

several years in the County’s pavement 

management system.

On one mile of pavement, he discovered the 

county had not applied any preventative 

treatments over the last 40 years, and 5 percent 

of the segments had extensive cracking and had 

minor faulting.

The remaining two miles were newer, and the 

county had sealed cracks and joints regularly. 

That section was in good shape structurally but 

had minor slab faulting and rutting of the 

surface. 

The engineer evaluated preservation treatment 

options using the observed distresses and the 

available budget. He concluded that the life of 

the pavement could be extended for 7 to10 

years without substantial maintenance if:

• The slabs identified with extensive 

cracking were removed and replaced. 
Federal-aid Essentials for Local Public Agencies

• Diamond grinding was used to restore 

smoothness, and 

• All joints and cracks were sealed

As the example illustrates, treatments do not 

have to be mutually exclusive and are often 

combined in a preservation project. Such 

preventative treatments can

• Prolong the life of concrete pavement, 

• Make effective use of available funding, 

and 

• Reduce the frequency of costly and 

disruptive rehabilitation and 

reconstruction projects.

Agencies must make cost-effective decisions 

and spend limited budgets wisely. An effective 

preservation program helps achieve that goal 

but relies on the agency selecting the right 

treatment at the right time for the specific 

pavement condition. If some of the techniques 

highlighted here—crack and joint sealing, 

diamond grinding and grooving, load transfer 

and cross stitching, and partial and full–depth 

repairs—are not in your agency’s tool box, look 

for additional information on how those 

treatments have helped other agencies 

effectively manage their pavement network.
Federal-aid Essentials for Local Public Agencies

The content of this 

document is not a 

substitute for 

information obtained 

from State departments 

of transportation, 

appropriate FHWA 

Division Offices, and 

applicable laws. 

Scenarios have been 

simplified for emphasis 

and do not necessarily 

reflect the actual range 

of requirements 

applicable to the 

scenario or this topic. 

This document was 

created under contract 

number DTFH61-13-A00001 by the Federal 

Highway Administration, 

U.S. Department of 

Transportation, and is 

offered to the public to 

heighten and focus 

awareness of Federal-aid 

requirements within the 

local public agencies 

community and 

reinforces the 

importance of these 

necessary policies, 

procedures, and 

practices.

This Companion 

Resource is the script 

content for the video 

production of the same 

name. 

Additional Resources

• FHWA Policy Guidance Center page has technical information and guidance 

materials for Pavement Preservation.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pgc/index.cfm?ddisc=52&dsub=1014

• The FHWA published PCCP Preservation Guide book published in September 

2014.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/concrete/pubs/hif14004.pdf

• A report with case studies of PCCP repair techniques compiled by the 

Missouri DOT in 2017 showing examples of application of multiple 

preservation methods for PCC Pavements.

https://library.modot.mo.gov/RDT/reports/TR201618/cmr17-013.pdf

• See this FHWA Center for Accelerating Innovation (CAI) webpage for details 

of preservation techniques.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/innovation/everydaycounts/edc_4/pavement.cfm

• This pavement management guidance document provides the necessary 

tools, procedures and practices for network-level pavement condition data 

collection.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pavement/management/qm/data_qm_guide.pdf

• This website of the Foundation for Pavement Preservation provides a 

toolbox with links to research reports and details for the wide variety of 

preservation techniques.

http://fp2.org/preservation-toolbox/

• Promotional brochure from FHWA effort to clarify when, where, and how of 

pavement preservation that can be distributed to stakeholders and 

management.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/innovation/everydaycounts/edc_4/factsheet/pa

vement_preservation.pdf