SubscribeCamp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina US is the largest Marine Corps base in the world.
In 2003 a new facility was built to provide maintenance, storage and parking area for various types of military vehicles. Densiphalt® was chosen as pavement due to its ability to withstand deformation and rutting from heavy static loads and continuous traffic of military vehicles.
Camp Lejeune is home to an active duty, dependent, retiree and civilian employee population of nearly 150,000 people. This requires a self-supporting infrastructure with on-site services that provide for every aspect of daily life and the maintenance of combat ready Marine units.
Recently, at new equipment maintenance facility was constructed on the base as part of Camp Lejeune’s ongoing mission to train and equip Marines. The new facility was built to provide maintenance, storage and parking area for various types of military vehicles.
Several requirements were specified for the pavement in order to ensure that it would meet the service demands in the new facility. The pavement had to prevent erosion and deformation as well as contamination of the sub base and ground water due to the fuel and oils from the equipment. Equally as important, the pavement had to be extremely abrasion resistant to stand up to the heavy traffic and friction imposed by military vehicles. These include rubber wheeled all-terrain vehicles like jeeps, hummers, heavy-duty trucks and tractors, and tracked-tread vehicles like tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers. Lastly the pavement had to be easy to maintain and offer an economical long-lasting system.
Given these challenging requirements the contractor chose to install Densiphalt® over traditional asphalt, concrete and resin-modified pavement. Densiphalt® is an innovative, semiflexible, joint-free pavement that combines the high strength and durability of concrete and the flexibility of asphalt. The dense structure ensures that fuels and lubricants do not penetrate and cause damage to the underlying structure and leach into the ground water. Highly resistant in aggressive environments, Densiphalt® is the ideal solution for the performance characteristics required at Camp Lejeune. The pavement provides unparalleled resistance to impact, compression, rutting and abrasion from heavy mechanical loads and friction imposed by the continual traffic of rubber-wheeled and tracked vehicles.
27,000 m2 of Densiphalt® was installed in a 5 cm thick wearing course that was applied over 7.5 cm sub base of bituminous asphalt and a 20 cm stone base course. The rapid installation and easy maintenance provided by the joint-free Densiphalt® delivered an excellent economic value and the assurance of long-lasting, trouble-free performance.