One of the factors that all of our customers care about is the performance of their concrete pavement; everyone wants to know that their concrete driveway, sidewalk, or other concrete pavement is going to hold up and last a long time. One factor that plays a key role in concrete pavement performance is joint design. Tucker Paving has decades of experience working in the paving industry, including concrete paving, and we know how important joint design can be.
Concrete Joints Explained
A concrete joint is a groove in the concrete surface that is sawed, formed, or tooled into a concrete slab. The purpose of this groove is to control the concrete in some manner. There are several different types of concrete joints. These include:
- Contraction or Control Joint. The most common joint, it is meant to create a weakened vertical plane in order to control the location of cracking in the concrete slab.
- Expansion Joints. This joint is placed to allow pavement to expand without creating issues with surrounding pavement or other structures.
- Isolation Joints. These joints are placed to lessen compressive stress at nonsymmetrical intersections, such as around a sewer manhole.
- Construction Joint. These joints are utilized when slabs are installed at different times, such as when there is a work stoppage due to weather.
- Specialty Joints. These are joints that are used for situations not described above, such as when concrete pavement meets asphalt pavement.
The Importance of Joint Placement
Concrete pavement joints are meant to control the concrete so that it does not fail; they ensure the performance of the concrete pavement. Each different joint is meant to control the concrete in different ways. The functions of concrete pavement joints include:
- Controlling or preventing cracking.
- To help the concrete handle load transfer.
- To isolate structures that will move or behave differently from the structures around it, such as a metal manhole surrounded by concrete pavement.
- To define lanes or shoulders.
Without pavement joints, concrete pavement will crack or develop other pavement distresses like faulting, pumping, spalling, breaking of corners, and more. In short, pavement joints ensure that concrete pavement will perform for years and years to come.
Tucker Paving has nearly 30 years of experience in the concrete and asphalt paving construction industry, and we offer asphalt and concrete repair and replacement and more. Call us at (863) 299-2262, or contact us online, for your next project!
