STANDARD PRACTICE FOR CONCRETE PAVEMENTS

1. Purpose.
This manual provides information on the
materials and construction procedures for concrete
pavements.
2. Scope.
This manual describes the constituents to
be used in concrete, the procedures to be used in
manufacturing concrete, and the equipment and
procedures to place, texture, and cure concrete for
pavements.
3. Responsibilities, strength, and air content.
a. Responsibility for mixture proportioning.
The responsibility for mixture proportioning must be
clearly assigned to either the contractor or the
contracting officer in the project specifications.
When the contracting officer is responsible for
mixture proportioning, he will approve all concrete
materials as well as determine and adjust propor-
tions of all concrete mixtures as necessary to obtain
the strength and quality of concrete required for the
pavements. Cement will be a separate pay item in
the contract. When the contractor is responsible for
mixture proportioning, he will control all proportions
of the concrete mixture necessary to obtain the
strength and quality of the concrete required for the
pavements, and cement will not be a separate pay
item in the contract. However, the contracting officer
is responsible for approving the quality of all
materials the contractor uses in the concrete.
b. Approval responsibility.
The contracting officer is responsible for approval of all materials,
mixture proportions, plants, construction equipment, and
construction procedures proposed for use by the
contractor. The contractor must submit proposed
mixtures if he is responsible for mixture propor-
tioning; samples of all materials; and detailed
descriptions of all plants, construction equipment,
and proposed construction procedures prior to the
start of construction.
c. Flexural strength.
Structural designs are based on flexural strengths that the
concrete is expected to obtain at 28 days for road pavements
and 90 days for airfield pavements. These ages are not adequate
for quality control in the field since a large amount
of low-strength concrete could be placed before
strength tests on samples revealed the problem.
Correlations can be established between a 14-day
strength and the 28- or 90–day strength used in
design, and this correlated 14-day strength can be
used as a strength check for a more timely concrete
mixture control in the field.
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