Country: Australia
Key Area: Transportation
Services: Pavement Engineering

The Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) of New South Wales engaged Opus to provide solution options for a section of concrete pavement that is showing visible signs of distress at Hexham, approximately 14km north-east of  Newcastle city centre. The pavement is heavily trafficked and so only night time work is feasible. This constraint restricts major scale slab replacement works as the pavement needs to be opened to traffic early morning. The thickness of the replaced pavement slabs is also constrained because of the necessity of matching thickness with the adjoining pavement slabs. With these constraints, the objective of the project was to investigate and research the use of innovative design practices and materials such as fibre reinforced concrete pavements to achieve a longer life from the replaced pavement slabs.