Experimental and numerical study on the structural performance of the stainless steel ring strengthened removable dowel bar connection system

Traditional jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP) systems cannot be reused after grouting fast-setting materials in the dowel slot. To achieve demountability, a removable dowel bar connection system is proposed in this paper. The severe stress concentration occurring in JPCP systems is mitigated by applying a stainless steel ring at the pavement joint surface. In the monotonic loading tests, different stainless steel ring thicknesses, lengths and the stainless steel tube thicknesses were considered. The effect of the stainless steel ring on the structural performance of the removable dowel bar connection system was studied in terms of the failure mode, the deflection response, ductility and the strain distribution and development. Besides, after being validated against experimental test results, the developed finite element model was used to conduct the extended parametric analysis, in which a close relationship was found between the ultimate load and the stainless steel ring length. To prevent the localised crushing failure, the maximum compressive stress at the joint surface was compared with the allowable bearing stress under service load. By using FEA data, an empirical equation was finally proposed to predict the ultimate loads of specimens with the proposed connection system.