Interlocking concrete block pavements are well established worldwide as an alternative to concrete slabs or bituminous materials. They are a form of flexible paving in which the surfacing consists of concrete pavers placed on a laying course of fine aggregate in the sand and fine gravel size range. Although the laying course is an essential component of a block pavement, it is also a source of potential weakness, particularly in critical loading conditions. A small number of failures of structural block pavements under heavy, channelised loading have been attributed to breakdown of the laying course material. Although there is no single, standardized test, a number of tests for degradation of fine aggregate are in use. In this paper, a series of tests, carried out on a range of bedding sand materials, using three different test methods is described. (A)
Abstract