Fourth International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering (CICE2008) 22-24July 2008, Zurich, Switzerland - 1 - Keywords: GFRP, CRCP, Pavement, Design, Construction, Instrumentation, Concrete, Steel 1 INTRODUCTION Many distress occurring in concrete structures are attributed to the corrosion of steel reinforce- ment, a condition to which steel-reinforced continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) is typically subjected. According to a CRCP performance report, corrosion has been a major de- teriorative factor for CRCPs in harsh environment as in Canada and northern states of USA, causing delamination, spalling, and steel rupture (Neff and Ray, 1986). Therefore, glass fiber re- inforced polymer (GFRP) bars which are increasingly gaining attention for structure application because of their non-corrosiveness and high longitudinal strength, light weight, and nonmag- netic quality, can also be viable alternatives to steel reinforcing bars for CRCP. CRCP is a reinforced concrete pavement where the longitudinal reinforcement is continuous for its length. It does not require any contraction joints (considered to be the week-point of jointed concrete pavements). Transverse cracks are allowed to form but are held tightly together with the continuous longitudinal reinforcement. Considering the success of the CRCP in USA and some European countries and for its superior long-term performance, the Ministry of Transpor- tation of Quebec (MTQ) investigated the use of CRCP in 2000 for the first time in Canada in a test project (2 km long) on Highway 13 in Laval (Montreal, Quebec). However, the major chal- lenge facing the CRCP designer is its long-term behavior when subjected to Quebec whether. Some core samples taken in 2005 at the cracks of the first CRCP constructed in 2000 showed corrosion in the longitudinal steel reinforcement. Several techniques were proposed to solve this problem including epoxy coating of the reinforcing bar and galvanized steel bars; however, nei- ther of these techniques has proven to be cost-effective or a long-term solution (Thébeau 2002). In an effort to find out the most durable solution, it has been suggested to use non-corrodible GFRP bars in the CRCP, and eventually replace all the steel bars with GFRP bars. This material First Use of GFRP Bars as Reinforcement for Continuous Reinforced Concrete Pavement B. Benmokrane 1 , M. Eisa 1 , S. El-Gamal 1 , E. El-Salakawy 2 , and D. Thebeau 3 1 Civil Engineering Department, University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada 2 Civil Engineering Department, University of Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada 3 Ministry of Transportation of Quebec, Quebec City, Canada ABSTRACT: The corrosion resistance characteristics of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars make them a promising substitute for conventional steel reinforcing bars in Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavements (CRCP). However, GFRP bars have never been used in a CRCP highway exhibiting regular traffic. This paper presents the steps that were followed in order to adapt the design and construction of eighteen full-scale CRCP slabs on Highway 40 East (Montréal) reinforced with GFRP bars. The test slabs represent a 150 m long section of the highway with the full width. Each slab in the test section is 25 m long and 3.7 m wide. The eighteen slabs were designed and constructed to investigate the different parameters known to affect the performance of such CRCP slabs. Varieties of sensors were installed in this project in order to monitor the early-age behavior, repeated load effects, and environmental conditions on the performance of the CRCP slabs. This includes different types of electrical resistance strain gauges and fiber optic sensors (FOS) to measure reinforcement and concrete strains. In addition, thermocouples and FOS have been used for temperature measurements. Design concepts, con- struction details, properties of used materials, early-age behavior and preliminary results of this first use of GFRP bars in CRCP slabs are presented in this paper.