An experimental comparison between different types of surface patterns of permeable interlocking concrete pavement for roadway subsurface drainage

In dense-graded pavements, which are used for composing and recomposing roads in the paving industry around the world, failures occur due to increasing traffic loads and the rising runoff of water caused by storms or floods, or any other reason. Therefore, this kind of issue can be treated by adopting a permeable pavement system such as the permeable interlocking concrete pavement (PICP) to manage the runoff of water and tolerate the increasing loads of traffic efficiently. In this study, a laboratory apparatus has been designed and fabricated as an artificial rainfall simulator to investigate the behavior of different surface concrete block patterns under different rainfall intensities. Measuring the levels of runoff and the volume of infiltrated water are the fundamental factors in creating an essential comparison between the elected surface patterns. In this study, stretcher bond, 90º herringbone, and 45° herringbone patterns are chosen with (5 mm and 10 mm) joint spacing between the concrete blocks. All three surface block patterns are tested in terms of four longitudinal slopes (0%, 2.5%, 5%, and 7.5%) and three side slopes (0%, 2.5%, and 5%) under three rainfall intensities (25 l/min, 50 l/min, and 75 l/min). Based on the results, the stretcher bond pattern showed superior results to other bonds because it reduces surface runoff and spreads the water evenly under the permeable concrete block roadway. The 90° herringbone and 45° herringbone patterns, on the other hand, are the best for increasing the durability of roads.