Ten-year performance of dowel-bar retrofit: application, performance, and lessons learned.

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has been rehabilitating its aged portland cement concrete pavements over the last 10 years by using dowel-bar retrofit, panel replacements, and diamond grinding. These pavements have been rehabilitated, with dowel-bar retrofit, to extend the performance life beyond the original design life of 20 years. The first dowel-bar retrofit application in Washington was constructed as a test section in 1992. Since then, WSDOT has dowel-bar retrofitted more than 350 lane-kilometers. Dowel-bar retrofit performance and application are described, and lessons learned in the last 10 years are discussed.