A new method to evaluate the performance of sealants, used in rigid pavement joints, was developed. A special fixture was designed to transfer cyclic in-line deflection, applied by a testing machine, to simultaneous cyclic normal and shear deflections, at a specific ratio, on a sealant sandwiched between two-51 mm portland cement mortar cubes. The developed fixture was used to evaluate the performance of three commercially available one-component sealant types (A, B, and C): A is a low modulus silicone, B is a self leveling silicone, while C is a polyurethane used with primer.

The sealants were evaluated under both cyclic compression/shear and tension/shear tests at 25 Hz. Each sealant was evaluated at two joint widths, 6.5 mm and 19 mm. Analysis of test results indicated that sealant C performed the best with no failure after 500,000 cycles in all tests, while the performance of sealant B was the worst with cohesive failure in most cases. Sealant A, on the other hand, failed adhesively at a joint width of 6.5 mm. All sealants, not surprisingly, performed better in cyclic compression/shear than in cyclic tension/shear.