• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.9 no.2 s.32
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• pp.101-114
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• 2007

Dowel bars in the jointed concrete pavement are used to both provide load transfer across pavements joints and prevent the joint faulting leading to longer service life. On the contrary, the misplacement of dowel bar can provide negative results including the joint freezing(locking) that may cause the joint spatting and unexpected mid-slab cracking. The dowel bar can be placed using the assembly or dowel bar inserter (DBI) during the concrete pavement construction. In the domestic practice of the concrete pavement construction, the dowel bar is placed using the assembly method. This study primarily focuses on the comparison of these two dowel placement methods using the field data from the KHC test road in which both dowel placement methods have been applied to a certain length of the concrete pavement. The field data regarding the alignment of the dowel bars placed by both methods was collected using MIT-SCAN2, a nondestructive measuring equipment, and processed to compute Joint Score and Running Ave. Joint Score which are used as indicators of the dowel bar performance. The comparison of the methods for the dowel bar placement using these indicators shows that the DBI method provided much better alignment of the dowel bars reducing the risk of joint freezing than the assembly method. In order to improve the quality of the dowel bar placement using the assembly method, the current weak points of the assembly method including the fabrication, storage, and installation of dowel bar assembly were investigated and the solution was suggested. The improved dowel bar sets based on the suggested solution have been applied to an actual practice of the concrete pavement construction. The field data shows that the improved assembly method suggested in this study can highly reduce the risk of joint freezing.