Effect of Environment on Durability of Pavement Materials: An Overview

The best known causes of material degradation in pavements include environment, traffic loads, and the use of substandard materials. Presented in the paper is a critical review of the environmental effects on material durability and, in turn, on pavement distresses. Moisture/precipitation and ambient temperature constitute the most influential environmental effects, which separately or collectively destroy the integrity of pavement materials - portland cement concrete, asphalt concrete, aggregates and subgrade soils. To highlight the significance of environmental effects, the authors, employing performance data of in-service pavements, present a comparative analysis of environmental damage as opposed to load-induced damage.