The purpose of this report is to document the recommended experimental design for the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) SPS-12 Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) Pavement Preservation Study. This study has been designed to establish the impact of selected preservation treatments on pavement performance under different loading and environmental conditions through a field study of in-service pavements starting from construction of the preservation treatments under consideration. The underlying concept of this experiment is to apply the same preservation treatment, at different times, on the same pavement structure to determine the effectiveness of a single application of a treatment as a function of pavement condition and time.

This experiment is designed to answer the question on when is the best time to apply a preservation treatment on PCC pavements. It will also enable development and implementation of important pavement preservation products and tools, such as addition of pavement preservation considerations to the AASHTO Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide and associated software. Although the recommended experiment will not be implemented under the LTPP program, the experiment and this project report can be adopted and adapted by interested highway agencies to achieve the stated benefits.