Rigid pavement has long been implemented in Inverness, England, in 1868. But at that time the development was not so rapid, where until 1919 only a few kilometers of roads had been built. Meanwhile in the United States, the first rigid pavement was built in Bellefontaine, Ohio, in 1891 by George Bartholomew. He had studied cement production in Germany and Texas, and found sources of such materials as limestone and clay in central Ohio. Since this rigid pavement was the first to be built there, the local government asked him to provide a guarantee of $5000, that this rigid pavement could last for 5 years. More than 100 years later, this part of the rigid pavement still functions.

In 1893, Cort Avenue and Opera Street were hardened. Columbia avenue and Main street were hardened in 1894. At that time, the term “concrete” was not in common use and the material was called “artificial stone” which was manually mixed with a size of 1.5 square. Other rigid pavements belonging to the early generation include Frount Street in Chicago which was built in 1905 and lasted 60 years, and Woodward Avenue in Detroit in 1909 which was part of the first rigid pavement. With the increasing use of four-wheeled vehicles. increase the need for paved roads. In 1913, the rigid pavement near Pine Bluff Arkansas America had been constructed with a length of 37 km. It costs one dollar per foot long, 2.7 m wide and 12.5 cm thick.

Other rigid pavements were also applied in the rest area, this was followed by the construction of a 79 km long road on the Mississippi suburbs in 1914, and by the end of 1914 the total length of rigid paved roads in America had reached 3788 km. To provide input in the development of rigid pavement planning procedures. Many trial runs have been made over the years. The first evaluation on the performance of rigid pavements was carried out by the Detroit Department of Public Works in 1909. This test track included concrete, granite, creosote block, and cedar block. Based on the results of this study, Wayne County Michigan had hardened Woodward Avenue with concrete and then over 96 km paved with rigid pavement in the following two years.

After 1916, rigid pavements were made with a thickness of 12.5 – 22.5 cm, but very little about the required thickness. During the years 1912 – 1913, the state of Illinois made the Bates test road, using ex-World War I trucks, which had wheel loads from 454 kg to 5900 kg, as the test load. Experimental segments consist of various materials and different thicknesses. The cross-sectional thickness of this rigid pavement is between 10 cm – 22.5 cm, while the segments with thickened edges are 22.9 cm – 12.5 cm – 22.9 cm and 22.9 cm – 15.2 cm and 22 cm. ,9 cm and some segments are attached with edge reinforcement. The results showed that one segment of brick, three segments of asphalt, and ten segments of rigid pavement gave satisfactory results. As a result, several design formulas have been developed for the construction of an interstate road system in Illinois. The Bates test track provides the basic data that engineers have used for several years.

Until 1922, many rigid pavements were constructed without joints and thickened in the middle to prevent longitudinal cracking which would occur in pavement widths between 4.9 – 5.5 m. Based on the experimental results in Bates, a joint was applied in the middle to eliminate longitudinal cracks. Another experimental route, was Pitsburg, California between 1921-1923 which compared reinforced rigid pavements with rigid pavements without reinforcement.

In 1950-1951, the Burreau of Public Road (now FHWA) together with the Highway Research Board (now the Transportation Research Board) conducted Road Test One –M0 south of Washington DC. A 1.8 km long road with a width of two lanes was observed, installed with monitoring equipment and traversed by 1000 trucks per day. The results show the importance of the load distribution function between plates, the influence of speed and axle load and the problem that causes pumping.

In the Maryland trial line, crack development was closely related to pumping development. The largest pumping development was found in the expansion joint. Pumping occurs in plastic clay soils, but does not occur in granular subgrades with low silt and clay content.

In addition to highways, this rigid pavement was also developed for pavements on airports. Rigid pavement for an airfield first constructed in 1928 at Ford Field Dearborn, Michigan. A year later it was also built at Cunken Field, Cincinati, Ohio. Like most rigid road pavements, this airport pavement uses thickening at the edges, with a thickness of 5 cm thicker than the center.

Dwight E Eisenhower in 1956, designed a road network of 66,000 km "interstate highway". Sixty percent of the road is paved with rigid pavement. This requires research to support the plan. This AASHTO trial road built near Ottawa, Illinois consists of 6 different loops and was trafficked for 2 years. Twelve axle load combinations and various asphalt and concrete pavement thicknesses were evaluated to determine the performance and trends of the pavements.

In the AASHTO trial run there were two different failure modes for rigid pavements. Very thin pavements fail with elongated edge pumping, resulting from edge cracks coalescing into longitudinal edge cracks. The thicker pavements fail due to pumping at the joints, leading to the initiation of transverse cracking, particularly on the traffic leave side of the joints. Of the 84 experimental segments whose thickness was greater than 20 cm, only seven segments experienced a serviceability index of less than 4 at the end of their service period. In fact, only three segments can be seen as collapsing.

At the beginning of the use of rigid pavements, it is often damaged by the “freezing and thawing” or scaling cycle due to deicing salt or pumping of the subgrade. This problem was addressed in the 1930s, with air entrainment in concrete to overcome the problem of durability. The conditions that lead to pumping have been identified, namely the result of fine material that can become “slurry” in the subgrade, as well as heavy axle loads and frequent traffic. To prevent this condition, a subbase layer between the subgrade and rigid pavement needs to be used to prevent pumping. (Source : Diklat Perkerasan Kaku, 2017)