Preventive maintenance (PM) is a cost-effective strategy of early maintenance done to a pavement as a preemptive measure to preserve the pavement by retarding deterioration. PM is traditionally a low-cost treatment done early in a pavement’s deterioration cycle. By definition, pavement preventive maintenance extends the service life and maintains or improves the functional condition of the system without substantially increasing structural capacity.
Pavement PM treatments reduce the amount of water infiltrating the pavement structure and correct surface deficiencies such as roughness and non-load-related distress. These treatments contribute little or no improvement to the pavement structure. PM should never be applied if fatigue-related distress exists in the pavement.
If applied at the proper time, pavement PM will lower the life cycle cost of any given pavement section, and when applied on a network of pavements, will improve the system condition at a lower cost. Some of the more common pavement preventive maintenance treatments are discussed in Arts. 3.10.1 to 3.10.4.
