IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHARAKTERISTICS ON CEMENT CONCRETE PAVEMENTS.

The territory of Slovakia is in Central Europe at the interface of the parts of the continent that are influenced by continental and by oceanic climates. This is reflected in the variability of weather and climate characteristics. Apart from traffic load, change of climatic conditions are one of the constant external factors with adverse effects on physical and mechanical properties of different structural multi-layers in pavements. These impacts together with frost index and their corresponding changes significantly affect surface characteristics of cement concrete pavements, which is the critical factor of pavements reliability and safety as regards road users. The strain and stresses in concrete slabs are important / significant temperature gradients - the temperature difference at the top and bottom surfaces. In the paper are described some pavement structural design problems and solutions with respect to their temperature regime and climatic change conditions in cement concrete slabs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]