Evaluating stepping displacements of pedestrian concrete pavements connected by EPDM rubber and PVC joiners

Pedestrian concrete pavements (sidewalks) are usually made of continuous slabs with simple control joints at a specified interval. Simple control joints such as breaking score lines or saw cuts are created on the pedestrian concrete pavements mainly to relieve stresses resulting from friction and also to avoid displacement/unplanned cracking. However, these joints have no load transfer mechanism and therefore the concrete slab panels may have different vertical movements at the joint when the pavements are affected by tree root invasion or by soil movement. Such differential vertical movements at adjoining slabs can create tripping hazards to pedestrians. This paper presents the use of ethylene-propylene-diene terpolymer (EPDM) rubber and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) joiners for minimizing such tripping hazards. An experimental investigation for evaluating stepping displacements of concrete pavements connected by EPDM rubber and PVC joiners has been undertaken. Nonlinear finite element analysis models using ABAQUS have also been developed.