Filtration and clogging of permeable pavement loaded by urban drainage

Permeable pavement, as a sustainable infrastructure material can promote hydrologic restoration, particulate matter (PM) and solute control. However, filtration and commensurate clogging are two aspects of continued interest and discussion. This study quantifies filtration and clogging of cementitious permeable pavement (CPP) for loadings from 50 to 200 mg/L of hetero-disperse sandy-silt PM. The CPP mix design provides a hetero-disperse pore size distribution (PSD)pore, effective porosity (φe) of 24% and median pore size of 658 μm with a standard deviation of 457 μm. The PM mass separation across the entire particle size distribution (PSD)PM exceeds 80%; with complete separation for PM greater than 300 μm and 50% separation for suspended PM. Turbidity is reduced (42–95%), and effluent is below 10 NTU in the first quartile of a loading period. Permeable pavement illustrates reductions in initial (clean-bed) hydraulic conductivity (k0) with loading time. For all PM loadings, k0 (3.1 × 10−1 mm/s) was reduced to 10−4 mm/s for runoff loading durations from 100 to 250 h, respectively. Temporal hydraulic conductivity (k) follows exponential profiles. Maintenance by vacuuming and sonication illustrate that 96–99% of k0 is recovered. Permeable pavement constitutive properties integrated with measured PM loads and a year of continuous rainfall-runoff simulation illustrate k reduction with historical loadings. Study results measure and model filtration and hydraulic conductivity phenomena as well as maintenance requirements of permeable pavement directly loaded by urban drainage.

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► Permeable pavement (PP) is a multi-purpose green infrastructure material system.
► PP promotes hydrologic restoration and particulate matter (PM) filtration but can clog.
► This study quantifies filtration and clogging properties of PP.
► PP promotes significant reductions in PM and turbidity but requires regular maintenance.
► Continuous simulation and historical data indicate that PP requires quarterly maintenance.