This report describes attempts by two contractors to use cold planning equipment (CMI Rotomills) to restore riding quality to faulted portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements. It was found that while the equipment could remove substantially all faulting and greatly improved riding quality, there was severe damage to the concrete adjacent to random cracks and transverse joints in spite of considerable effort to prevent it. Because of this damage, the equipment as tested was not considered satisfactory for grinding PCC pavements.

Many miles of portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements in California are in need of rehabilitation because of the deterioration of riding quality. In a recent report by the Transportation Laboratory, "Rehabilitation of Faulted Pavements by Grinding", it was concluded that diamond grinding with diamond tipped blades was a satisfactory method of restoring good riding qualities to rough pavements.

Diamond grinding is a concrete pavement restoration technique that corrects irregularities such as faulting and roughness on old concrete pavements and extends the life of pavement. Cooling water used during the diamond grinding of concrete pavement highways generates slurry consisting of water, concrete and aggregate residue.

The Buena Vista County staff developed a construction project to retrofit the dowels in the joints and grind the surface of the test pavement. The contract included items for the preparation and the installation of dowels in each of the transverse joints in the pavement. After a careful analysis of the dowel bar retrofit (DBR) sections, the conclusion was made that FRP bars maintain a better IRI. However, this comes at a higher cost.

The grinding and grooving texturing of concrete pavement surfaces is a new resurfacing technique intended to reduce tire/pavement noise. The American Concrete Pavement Association refers to this surface as the Next Generation Concrete Surface (NGCS). The goal of the study presented in this report is to evaluate the diamond grinding and grooving technology as used on test sections in Caltrans pilot projects in terms of noise, smoothness, friction, and surface drainability.

Research report from WSDOT documents the construction and initial testing of a section of Next Generation Concrete Surface (NGCS) installed on I-82 near Sunnyside, Washington. NGCS is the term applied to a new method of diamond grinding that produces the quietest concrete pavement surface tested to date. The dowel bar retrofit (DBR) operations were conducted first followed by the diamond grinding to construct the NGCS.