Rehabilitation of Tabarja – Chekka Highway (Lebanon) Using Cold In-Place Recycling With Foamed Bitumen and Cement Technique

The main target of Tabarja – Chekka highway that was constructed on early 80's was to reach the Beirut port's transit goods to Syria, Iraq and Jordan. Due to civil war, no preventive and preservation activities were carried out on the highway. On early year 2000, Lebanon government determined to rehabilitate the highway. The Tabarja - Chekka portion that was mostly distressed and suffered from various types of problems such as bleeding in vast areas, rutting, and settlements that was patched and filled widely, different type of crocodile, longitudinal and transverse cracks was subjected to be rehabilitated. The total length of this portion is 80km (660,000m2) from Tabarja to Chekka and vice versa with the varied width in special parts. Based on the 25 years of design life with the EASL of 30×106 the consultant engineers came up with different rehabilitation solutions. Regarding to the point that the existing cracks will reflect to the surface of newly overlay after a short period of time, removing and stock-piling of asphalt in the nature will cause pollution in the wild life traditional rehabilitation methods were not approved by road authorities. Thus consultant engineers suggested the cold in-place recycling with foamed bitumen and cement as fastest, cost-effective and environmental friendly rehabilitation method. In this process bitumen (with shape of foam) and cement (with form of slurry) inject to the mixture of in-situ asphalt and underneath base course. The mixture will be compacted and reshaped. This will lead to create a layer with much higher load bearing capacity and less susceptibility to water ingress. Modifying the transverse and longitudinal profile is another benefit of this system.

کلیدواژه ها:

Cold recycling ، Foamed bitumen ، Rehabilitation ، Cracks ، Slurry cement.