The influence of thermal loads on modern road concrete pavements in Poland

This article presents the opportunities for the development of road concrete pavements in Poland. The analysis of the prospects for evolving a new type of concrete pavement, based on continuous reinforcement, has been performed. The advantages and disadvantages, in terms of functionality, strength and economy, have been analysed. The evaluation of stress and displacements in the analysed continuously reinforced concrete slabs, involving the use of the finite element method (FEM), has been performed on selected temperature distributions derived from thermal loads. Based on the analysis of adopted decompositions, the use of the FEM to assess the effectiveness of the continuously reinforced pavements has been proposed.