Chapter 6: Failures, Maintenance and Rehabilitation of Transportation

Infrastructure.

Introduction

Road maintenance is work that takes place on roads from motorways to

unclassified roads to ensure they remain strong, safe and efficient. Road maintenance
takes many forms, but the overarching aim is to keep road users safe, manage traffic
and maintain upkeep.

Learning Objectives

1. Explain highway maintenance and traffic safety management.

2. Identify failures.
3. Discuss the maintenance and rehabilitation of transportation infrastructure.

Discussion

Transportation Infrastructures

Transportation infrastructures are foundational structures and systems for

transporting people and goods.

Common Types of Transportation Infrastructures

1. Roads
2. Railways
3. Bridges and Tunnels
4. Ship Canals
5. Ports
6. Airports Runways

Roads

Roads such as streets, avenues and highways. Includes paved roads, unpaved
roads and roads with unique surfaces like cobblestone and such.

Roads Failure Causes

1. Rutting due to high variation in ambient temperature

2. Uncontrolled heavy axle loads
3. Inadequate Stability
4. Loss of binding action
5. Poor Design and Fabrication
6. Congestion
7. Environmental Hazard (Flood, Earthquake etc.)
8. Accidents
9. Poor Maintenance

Type of Road Failures

Pavement failure occurs when a surface no longer holds its original shape and
and develops material stress which causes issues.

The major types of pavement failure are:

1. Cracking
Asphalt cracking by far makes up for the majority of pavement failure issues
because of its tendency to spread and the wide variety of elements that can cause
cracking. It is fairly normal for an asphalt surface to crack over time due to the settling
of soil and the exposure to the outdoor elements, however, there are some less usual
and common cracking issues that can form from improper mix design for pavement
construction.
A. Fatigue Cracking
B. Longitudinal Cracking
C. Transverse Cracking
D. Block Cracking
E. Slippage Cracking
F. Reflective Cracking
G. Edge Cracking

2. Surface Deformation
Visible deformation within the surface of the road pavement.
A. Rutting
B. Corrugations
C. Shoving
D. Depressions
E. Swell

3. Disintegration
Breaking up of pavement into small, loose pieces including the dislodging of
aggregate particles.
A. Pot Holes
B. Patches

Highway Maintenance

Highway maintenance begins just after the construction, reconstruction or

rehabilitation of the roadway facilities.
As defined by AASHTO, “Maintenance is the preservation and keeping of each
type of roadway, roadside, structures and facilities as nearly as possible in its original
condition as constructed or as subsequently improved the operation of highway facilities
and service to provide satisfactory and safe transportation.”

Objective of Highway Maintenance

1. Highway programs and activities are measured by the amount of expenditures for
construction of new facilities and reconstruction of new existing structure with the aim of
keeping up with the traffic demand.

2. Maintenance has its own role: by giving priority to local, rural and urban facilities
particularly the paving and rehabilitation after the construction has been completed.

4. Maintenance is focus on the do betterment projects. It includes grading and

paving for short alignment changes, to correct steep grades or sharp curves, re-
surfacing and mulching, planting, flood and erosion control.

Relationship between Design, Construction and Maintenance

1. Poor preparation of the base, insufficient slab thickness and poor mixture ratio will
only result to the very expensive road repair. Indeed, management absorbed the end
result of design and construction inefficiency.

2. Poor drainage design will mean erosion or deposition of materials that requires costly
clean up operations.

3. Sharp ditches and steep slopes require costly manual labor maintenance as
compared to flat ditches and slopes hat allow equipment to work at a lower cost.

4. Narrow road lanes usually forced large and heavy vehicles to travel with one set of
wheels near the edge or off the pavement, giving the maintenance personnel serious
problems in the care of pavements edges and the shoulder.
5. High maintenance cost is the result of poor design or construction methods. This
is the main problem that causes numerous demolitions and unending reconstruction
activities being undertaken by the highway people.

Maintenance in Categorizes into:

1. Road surface maintenance

2. Shoulder and approach maintenance
3. Bridge maintenance
4. Traffic services

Road Surface Maintenance

Unlike construction involving high volume of work, maintenance operation, deals

with small amount of work at separate locations. Road maintenance requires speed
performance to cause the least possible disruption and danger to traffic. Maintenance
operation requires:

1. For Gravel Roads, blading and periodic re-shaping or resurfacing is a routine periodic
maintenance activity.
2. For Surface Treatment of low type bituminous pavement, maintenance could be
patching, seal coating, remixing and relaying.
3. For Slick Asphalt Surface, roughening, burning or non-skid seal is required.
4. For Concrete Road, maintenance could be removal and replacement or filling of
damage areas. Sometimes joint sealing or mid-jacking or undersealing is relatively
common maintenance work.

Maintenance of Shoulder and Approach

Maintenance of the shoulder and approaches of the highway is governed by the

surface characteristics in the area.

1. Sod shoulders should be removed and periodically bladed down to the roadway
elevation to avoid entrapment of water in the traveled way.
2. Grass prevents shoulder erosion. If necessary, fertilized, re-seeded, or treated to keep
them in good conditions.
3. Grave and earth shoulder should be maintained by blading under favorable weather
conditions.
4. Rutting or setting of the shoulder should be corrected at once by reconstruction or re-
surfacing.

Bridge Maintenance

1. For steel bridge structure, the routine maintenance calls for cleaning by sandblasting,
flame or other means of re-painting.
2. Cleaning and re-sealing of deck joints that are extruded or filled with dirt.
3. Repair of drainage handrails.
4. Re-surfacing of rough or slicky deck surface.
5. Correct serious scour around the pier and abutments.
6. Most bridges maintenance is considered specialized work. Traveling crews
exclusively for bridges work alone is a function of the maintenance operations.
7. Concrete bridge decks normally deteriorate due to deicing salts. The problem starts
when the sat penetrates and corrodes the reinforcing steel that spall-off the overlaying
concrete.
8. Correction is to remove the concrete, clean the steal and apply new material such as
polymer concrete.
9. Sometimes seal-out or overlay of asphalt materials are used as protective covering.
10. Check the bridge deck deterioration by:
a. Applying waterproof membranes.
b. Applying latex modified concrete.
c. Impregnating the deck with polymers.
d. Passing electric current through reinforcing steel.
11. If decks are dismantled, an epoxy coated reinforcing steel may be used.

Traffic Service

Maintenance operations of highway includes the traffic services like:

1. Stripping is a continuing function

2. Repair of road signs
3. Maintenance of street and highway light and signals. (sometimes the functions of the
government)
4. Coping up with emergencies. Personnel on patrol to keep the road open and rescue
stranded vehicles.

Maintenance Management

Today, maintenance and its management are considered the most intricate and
ever-changing highway and technology. Maintenance is now regarded as one of the
most important part of the highway maintenance program.
Continuous studies have been going focused on the best management, time
utilization, productivity, methods, and management of maintenance. Studies showed the
need for improvement on the following field.

1. Education is management technique for maintenance Engineers foreman including its

field personnel.
2. More detailed and careful planning and scheduling of work and establishing standards
for the level of maintenance.
3. Major improvement of maintenance tools and equipment.
4. Providing a better and efficient communications.
5. Establishing lines of authority and responsibilities.
6. For the maintenance organization to succeed, staffing with permanent trained and
dedicated personnel is the solution.
7. Effective management system requires efficient, accurate and fair budgeting and
reporting procedures. But how to implement these, is next to impossible, because it is
difficult to overcome varied administration, and behavioral problems.

Requirements for Maintenance Management

1. To stabilize the standard level of the maintenance by setting performance standards

for workers crew and maintenance units. This requires Methods Time Management
(MTM) expected output for operations that are pre-determined.
2. To develop an accurate monitoring and fair reporting system and to compare actual
work with the expected production.
3. To develop a management system that will give the efficient work scheduling
assignment.
4. To develop effective procedures, methods and machinery or organization to carry
individual
maintenance operations.

Effective maintenance management could be achieved by gaining the

enthusiastic support of the personnel educating them with the new methods plus
acknowledgement of their efforts through personal recognition and by financial reward
for there is a saying that we cannot live by the love alone. The roadway to the
development in maintenance is still far. While the others have already gone for
advanced, we are just about to begin.

Effective maintenance personal activities are measured under the following

criteria.

1. Personnel who are devoted to the maintenance work are not those who just kill the
time and collect their salaries.
2. Personnel responsibility for keeping the roadway open to traffic moving under all
conditions.
3. Personnel rescue operation in assisting stranded motorists during bad weather, heavy
rain, removal of fallen trees, flood, erosion, etc.
4. Maintenance personnel are exposed to accidents, hazards during their maintenance
or rehabilitation
work.

Maintenance personnel deserves to be recognized and rewarded accordingly,

unfortunately, these dedicated people are sometimes victims of neglect especially in the
promotion and increase of salaries.
On some instances, Highway agency is legally held responsible for injury to
person or damages to property resulted from poor highway maintenance. Unfortunately,
employees and supervisors are even charged in court, condemned, and crucified by the
media people prior the hearing of the case.

Rehabilitation

Pavement rehabilitation is an activity primarily to provide god riding and skid

resistance or to improve the structural effectiveness of the pavement.

The FHWA defined rehabilitation as:

“ Resurfacing, restoration and rehabilitation work, restoring to the original safe
usable condition without addition to the original capacity.”

According to AASHTO, the primary objectives of pavement rehabilitations are:

1. To improve the smoothness of the road surface.

2. To extend the pavement life.
3. To improve the skid resistance to the road.
4. To construct the sections with poor foundations.
5. To improve the drainage facilities.

The efficiency of the highway system could be rated by:

1. Sufficiency ratings.
2. Accident data.
3. Skid tests.
4. Maintenance report.
5. Public comments and suggestions.

Resurfacing

Resurfacing is the addition pavement layer over the existing roadway or bridge
deck surface to provide additional capacity. The additional re-surface pavement should
not be less than 20 mm in thickness.

Restoration and Rehabilitation

Restoration and rehabilitation work include:

1. Replacement of defective joints.

2. Repair of spalled joints
3. Substantial pavement work.
4. Reworking or strengthening of sub-base.
5. Recycling existing materials to improve their structural integrity.
6. Adding under drains.
7. Improving shoulders
8. Removing and replacing deteriorated materials.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction refers to the removal of existing pavement and replacing them

with a new pavement and under course.
Recycling

Recycling means the repeated use of existing materials working on asphalt

materials, Portland cement or lime.

The Recycling Procedures could be as follows:

1. Surface Recycling consists of reworking about the top surface of asphalt

pavement. It is applied for the treatment of raveling, wheel truck rutting, flushing and
corrugations. The work includes the use of heater-planer, heater-scarifier, cold planners
and cold milling. The disadvantage of their use is the are the presence of noise, heat,
and air pollution.

2. In place Surface and Base Recycling. This procedure involves pulverizing all
existing pavement, followed by re-shaping, and compacting. Before relaying, the
materials are upgraded with lime, Portland cement or chemicals. This method is used for
both asphalt and Portland cement concrete pavement. One advantage of this method is
the ability to increase the load carrying capacity of the pavement without major changes
in the grade.

3. Central Plant Recycling is the removal materials from the roadway, crushing them,
mixing in the plant then laid and compacted with conventional equipment.

Maintenance of Concrete Pavements

As mentioned earlier, maintenance of the roadway of any type is routine activity.

Maintenance of good concrete road could be argued as follows:

1. Sealing cracks of transverse and longitudinal construction and expansion joints is one
recommendation where maintenance Engineers could not agree on one question
whether sealing the narrow cracks is effective or not. The practice however, is to clean
properly wide cracks or spalled joints then applied with sealing materials to prevent the
intrusion of extraneous material, and to block the downward penetration of surface
water.

2. For small and scattered broken surface on good concrete pavement, patching with
concrete is economical. On affected portion old concrete is removed by vertical straight
line cut parallel and perpendicular to the roadway center-line. For corner repair, the
angle from the roadway center-line should be greater than 30°but less than 60°.

3. Sections that are removed should have a minimum area of 20 square meters. If the
sub-grade appears to be weak, suitable materials and compact properly. The new
concrete slab should be as thick as the original pavement.

4 . Good practice demand that extra thickness adjoining the old concrete be provided
extending the patch under the old pavement to width and depth of 1.0 centimeters

5. Additional cement is necessary to produce high early strength concrete or an

accelerator such as calcium chloride is used for patching if early use of the pavement is
desired. The ideal time to make repair of concrete pavement road is in the evening.

6. Pavement surface with spall from freezing and thawing or salt action are levelled
with asphalt mixture or surface treatment. Another method is to patch with concrete
bonded to the old concrete with a cement-water or epoxy.

7. Spalled joint can be repaired with cement grout containing epoxy mixed with
catalyst.
Railways

Railways including high speed rail, subways and elevated railway such as cable
car.

Railways Failure Causes

1. Impact of moving loads

2. Effect of acceleration and deceleration
3. Constant reversal of stresses
4. Defects in manufacture
5. Braking of wheels
6. Fatigue caused by shearing stresses
7. Effect of weather and Temperature
8. Maintenance of rail joints
9. Axle load of locomotive
10. Design of rail joints
11. Frequency of rail renewal
12. Corrosion
13. Poor Maintenance

Type of Railway Failures

1. Crushed Head
● Heads get crushed, metal flows on the head of the rail.

● Defects in manufacture, flat spots on wheels, slipping of wheels, weak support

at the rail end.
● Skidding causes flat sports, loose finish bolts cause weak support at ends.
2. Transverse
● Fissure or hole in the head.

● Poor manufacture, Excessive straining.

3. Horizontal Fissure
● Outcome of worn fish plates or insufficient ballast.
4. Split Head
● The head splits into two parts.

● If the surface of cracks appears smooth and dark, it is called as piped rail.

● Formed due to cavity during manufacturing process.

5.Square of Angular Breaks
● Rail breaks in either vertical or angular plane.

Railway Maintenance and Rehabilitation Includes

1. Ballast Checking
2. Lubricating Places such as curves on the side of the head of the rails
3. Tightening of joints and Fittings
4. Use of special alloy rails where wear is more
5. Renewal of Rails

Creeps of Rails

Longitudinal movement of rails in a track is termed as creep. It is common to all

railway tracks and has a value from 0 to 130 mm per month.

Causes of Creep
1. Brakes
● Due to forces while starting or stopping.

● Starting - rails pushed backward.

● Stopping - rails pushed forward.

2. Wave motion of wheels
3. Changes in temperature

Bridges and Tunnels

A bridge is a structure to cross an open space or gap. Bridges are mostly made
for crossing rivers, valleys, or roads. While a tunnel is an underground passageway, dug
through the surrounding soil/earth/rock and enclosed except for entrance and exit,
commonly at each end.

Bridge and Tunnels Failure Causes

1. High variation in ambient temperature

2. Uncontrolled heavy axle loads.
3. Inadequate Stability
4. Effect of seawater/water especially to the bridge columns
5. Inadequate ground Investigation
6. Poor Design and Fabrication
7. Congestion of Vehicles
8. Environmental Hazard ( Flood, Earthquake, Tsunami etc.)
9. Accidents (Car crash, Boat Crash, Train Crash etc.)
10. Inadequate Support method of excavation

Type of Bridge and Tunnel Failures

1. Steel Materials
Corrosion of Steel
Paint Deterioration
Loose Connections

2. Concrete Material
Collapse
Spalling
Wear/Abrasion
Material Deterioration
Surface Defect
Delamination
Water Leak at Deck

3. Expansion Joint
Abnormal Spacing
Difference in Level
Rupture
Drainage Blocked

4. Drainpipe

Bridge and Tunnel Maintenance and Rehabilitation Includes

1. Exposed steel work must be cleaned and repainted

2. Cleaning and resealing of Deck joint
3. Damage to guard rail, must be repaired and strengthened
4. Resurfacing of deck
5. Scour around and under piers and abutments should be removed
6. Sealing, patching, filling joints and such.
7. Checking of steel cables for corrosion.
8. Checking of supports

Ports

A port is a maritime facility which may comprise one or more wharves where
ships may dock to load and discharge passengers and cargo. Although usually situated
on a sea coast, some ports can be miles inland, with access to the sea via river or canal.

Ship Canals

A ship canal is a canal especially intended to accommodate ships used on the

oceans, seas or lakes to which it is connected, as opposed to a barge canal intended to
carry barges and other vessels specifically designed for river and/or canal navigation.

Ports and Ship Canal Failure Causes

1. Poor Design and Fabrication

2. High variation in ambient temperature
3. Effect of seawater to the construction materials
4. Severe Corrosion
5. Congestion of Ships
6. Environmental Hazard (Flood, Earthquake, Tsunami etc.)
7. Accidents (Boat Crash)
8. Poor Maintenance

Type of Ports and Ship Canal failures

1. Material Deterioration
2. Damage of components
3. Scouring
4. Sedimentation
5. Collapsing of wharf / Settlement of Foundation

Ports and Ship Canal Maintenance and Rehabilitation includes

1. Steel repair and painting

2. Implementation of coatings for corrosion protection
3. Epoxy injection into small Cracks on deck and supported beams
4. Removal of plastered concrete and cleaning of surface
5. Subject rebars replacement and re-concreting of damage section
6. Placement of anti scouring devices

Airport Runways

A complex of runways and buildings for the take-off, landing, and maintenance of
civil aircraft, with facilities for passengers.

Type of Airport Runways failures

1. Cracking
2. Surface Deformation
3. Disintegration
4. Rubber Deposits

Airport Runways Failure Causes

1. Poor Design and Fabrication

2. High variation in ambient temperature
3. Poor Maintenance
4. Degradation
5. Congestion of Aircrafts
6. Environmental Hazard (Flood, Earthquake, Tsunami, Bird Strikes etc.)
7. Accidents

Airport Runways Maintenance and Rehabilitation Includes

Airport maintenance means any work carried out to keep airports runways
excellent condition, keep their operations running smoothly and meet the high safety
standards.

1. Maintenance of Visual Aids

Airport Light maintenance
Basic maintenance programme for approach, runway and taxi way lighting
systems
Special types of lights
Cleaning procedures for lights
Light measurement
Lamp replacement

2. Signs
Markings

3. Maintenance of Airport Electrical Systems

Power cables and distributors in field
Transformers and regulators (including standby units)
Transformer stations for electric power supply
Relay and switch cabinets (including switch cabinets in sub-stations)
Control cables, monitoring units, control desk
Secondary power supplies (generators)
Fixed 400 Hz ground power supplies
Apron floodlighting

4. Maintenance of Pavements
Surface repair
Repair of cracks
Portland cement concrete pavements
Bituminous pavements
Repair of joints and cracks
Joints in concrete pavements
Concrete joint maintenance
Joints in bituminous pavements
Repair of pavement edge damage
Edge repair
Corner repair
Repair of other pavement surface deficiencies

5. Sweeping
Purpose of sweeping
Surface monitoring
Cleaning of surfaces
Purpose of cleaning pavements
Removal of rubber deposits
Fuel and oil removal

6. Removal of snow and ice

Procedures for snow removal:
Surface de-icing
Surface anti-icing

7. Drainage
Cleaning of slot drains
Drain pipes or culverts between surfaces and collector basins
 Oil and fuel separators
Water hydrants

8. Maintenance of Unpaved Areas

Maintenance of green areas within strips
Maintenance of grass on unpaved runways and taxiways
Maintenance of green areas outside strips
Treatment of cut grass

SUMMARY

A. Transportation infrastructure plays a vital role in helping our transportation

remain its function, transportation is important because it enables communication, trade
and other forms of exchange between people, that in turn establishes civilizations.

B. Though over time some of this infrastructure experience failures due to a lot of
factors.

C. That’s why Maintenance and rehabilitation is being carried out regularly to these
transportation infrastructure at a fixed interval or as and when damage is observed.

D. This maintenance might scale to minor inspection, repairs to major rehabilitation

and as such.

E. It is important to know that maintenance of transportation infrastructures ensures

safety to users, improves its performance, reduce possible repair cost, extend its
expected life span and provide information for future engineers, designers &
constructors for future designs and builds of Transportation Infrastructures.