Removable Urban Pavements: An innovative, sustainable technology

François de Larrard (1) , Thierry Sedran (2) , Jean Maurice Balay (3)

1 IFSTTAR/DS - Direction scientifique
2 IFSTTAR/MAT - Département Matériaux
3 IFSTTAR/IM - Département Infrastructures et Mobilité

Removable Urban Pavements: An innovative, sustainable technology By definition, a Removable Urban Pavement (RUP) can be quickly opened and closed, using lightweight equipment, for easy access to underground networks. While no such pavement appears to have ever been constructed, the premises of the concept can be found in certain military paths or industrial soils. A survey conducted among French municipal authorities has revealed the potential benefit of the RUP concept in decreasing the public nuisance caused by pavement and road network maintenance work. Two French cities, Saint Aubin-lès-Elbeuf (near Rouen, Seine- Maritime, Normandy) and Nantes (Loire- Atlantique, western France) agreed to play host to an RUP experiment. A set of functional specifications was provided for streets to be built in new residential areas, subsequent to which original pavement designs were proposed based on a configuration of precast, hexagonal concrete slabs over a hydraulic base course easy to excavate. After successful trials using accelerated loading facilities, two removable structures were built and subjected to real traffic. Should the satisfactory behavior observed so far last into the future, RUPs would appear to be a highly sustainable response to the needs of modern cities.

Mots clés: EXCAVATION; CHAUSSEE URBAINE DEMONTABLE; DEVELOPPEMENT DURABLE; SITE EXPERIMENTAL

Domaines: Matériaux

François de Larrard, Thierry Sedran, Jean Maurice Balay. Removable Urban Pavements: An innovative, sustainable technology. International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 2013, 14 (issue 1), pp 1-11. ⟨10.1080/10298436.2011.634912⟩. ⟨hal-00850769⟩