Observations of Infiltration Through Clogged Porous Concrete Block Pavers

Abstract

James and Verspagen (1996), Thompson and James (1995), and Shahin 1994) have observed low runoff volumes from porous concrete paver laboratory test blocks used in their respective research. However, the laboratory test blocks were not subjected to wear or the deposition of pollutants overtime on the surface and, therefore, perform under optimum conditions. The purpose of this research is to test the hypothesis that, for a particular permeable paver hereinafter called Uni-ecostone (see acknowledgements at end for trademarks), infiltration capacities decrease with age and certain land uses, and that infiltration capacities may be improved by simply street sweeping and/or vacuuming the surface. The research uses data collected at several Uni-ecostone porous concrete paver installations. Permeable pavement helps reproduce the pre-development hydrologic regime at urbanized sites (Schueler, 1987). In achieving this, the key is to provide surface infiltration capacity which allows an adequate volume of stormwater runoff to be captured by the facility. Such an infiltration capacity is dependent upon factors such as surface slope, and surface ponding. There is little difficulty in designing and constructing a system to provide appropriately high infiltration capacities; however, maintaining these infiltration capacities over several years has proven to be challenging.