Aplicación de Efecto de Berma en el Diseño de Losas de Concreto para el Pavimento de Calzadas Exclusivas del Sistema de Transmilenio en Bogotá

Abstract

This document includes research results with theoretical elements, field work, design techniques application and computer analysis methods applied to practical cases. It is related to the shoulder effect in the design and construction of concrete pavements for the Transmilenio System in Bogotá City. Those pavements allowed in a more than 2o years application, the local development of techniques for concrete pavements for heavy loads in a massive Public Transport systems with buses (BRT) The failure issues of rigid pavements in some of the first urban trunk roads lead to conservative attitude form designers and officers, looking for thicker slab design, by the use of higher factors of safety and particular considerations. In this topic, the last contracts of the road development entities ask the no inclusion of the shoulder effect in designing, which lead to an increase of between 3 to 5 cm additional slab thickness. Shoulder effect deals with stress magnitude and deformation in the concrete slab, which are increased if the bus wheels circulate along the edge of the slab, that is, in the condition of no solder effect consideration. Greater physical results lead to about 20% more volume of concrete. In this study, the impact of stresses, deformations and design results are shown for particular practical cases. The origin of past issues in the city pavements, no related to shoulder effect is shown, given that many successful pavement projects in the TransMilenio system did not consider such condition. Also, it is pointed that, in the field work the current condition do not show vehicles circulating along the edges of the slabs and that there is not any evidence of failures by lack of lateral confinement. Some concussions and recommendations are issued related to previous concrete pavement experiences in Bogotá and also suggestions of new topics for related research are included.