Cracking and Seating to Retard Reflective Cracking - Fremont County, HR-279, 1993

The concept of cracking and seating a portland cement concrete (pcc) pavement prior to laying an asphalt cement concrete (acc) surface in order to reduce reflection cracking has been around since the 1950s. With the advent of improved cracking equipment, this method gained renewed interest in the 1970s and 1980s. This project incorporated six test sections of which four were cracked and seated prior to being overlaid. Fremont County decided to utilize only a 0.9 m (3 ft) cracking pattern based on a 30 m (100 ft) trial test section. Pavement cracking appeared to be effective in reducing primarily longitudinal reflectance cracking, but only marginally successful in the reduction of transverse reflective cracking.