Browsing by Subject "Flexible pavement"

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Development of reliable pavement models
(2011-08) Aguiar Moya, José Pablo, 1981-; Prozzi, Jorge Alberto; Manuel, Lance; Walton, Michael; Machemehl, Randy B.; Yilmaz, Hilal
As the cost of designing and building new highway pavements increases and the number of new construction and major rehabilitation projects decreases, the importance of ensuring that a given pavement design performs as expected in the field becomes vital. To address this issue in other fields of civil engineering, reliability analysis has been used extensively. However, in the case of pavement structural design, the reliability component is usually neglected or overly simplified. To address this need, the current dissertation proposes a framework for estimating the reliability of a given pavement structure regardless of the pavement design or analysis procedure that is being used. As part of the dissertation, the framework is applied with the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) and failure is considered as a function of rutting of the hot-mix asphalt (HMA) layer. The proposed methodology consists of fitting a response surface, in place of the time-demanding implicit limit state functions used within the MEPDG, in combination with an analytical approach to estimating reliability using second moment techniques: First-Order and Second-Order Reliability Methods (FORM and SORM) and simulation techniques: Monte Carlo and Latin Hypercube Simulation. In order to demonstrate the methodology, a three-layered pavement structure is selected consisting of a hot-mix asphalt (HMA) surface, a base layer, and subgrade. Several pavement design variables are treated as random; these include HMA and base layer thicknesses, base and subgrade modulus, and HMA layer binder and air void content. Information on the variability and correlation between these variables are obtained from the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) program, and likely distributions, coefficients of variation, and correlation between the variables are estimated. Additionally, several scenarios are defined to account for climatic differences (cool, warm, and hot climatic regions), truck traffic distributions (mostly consisting of single unit trucks versus mostly consisting of single trailer trucks), and the thickness of the HMA layer (thick versus thin). First and second order polynomial HMA rutting failure response surfaces with interaction terms are fit by running the MEPDG under a full factorial experimental design consisting of 3 levels of the aforementioned design variables. These response surfaces are then used to analyze the reliability of the given pavement structures under the different scenarios. Additionally, in order to check for the accuracy of the proposed framework, direct simulation using the MEPDG was performed for the different scenarios. Very small differences were found between the estimates based on response surfaces and direct simulation using the MEPDG, confirming the accurateness of the proposed procedure. Finally, sensitivity analysis on the number of MEPDG runs required to fit the response surfaces was performed and it was identified that reducing the experimental design by one level still results in response surfaces that properly fit the MEPDG, ensuring the applicability of the method for practical applications.
A study of geosynthetic reinforced flexible pavement system
(2009-12) Gupta, Ranjiv; Zornberg, Jorge G.
The use of geosynthetics as reinforcement for the base layer of flexible pavement systems has grown steadily over the past thirty years. In spite of the evidence that geosynthetic reinforcements can lead to improved pavement performance, the specific conditions or mechanisms that enable and govern the reinforcement are unclear, largely remaining unidentified and unmeasured. The appropriate selection of design parameters for geosynthetics is complicated by the difficulty in associating their relevant properties to the improved pavement performance. In addition, pavement structures deteriorate under the combined effects of traffic loading and environmental conditions, such as moisture changes. However, these factors have not been studied together in the evaluation of the overall performance of pavement systems. Consequently, this research focused on the assessment of the effect of geosynthetics on the pavement structural section's ability to support traffic loads and to resist environmental changes. Accordingly, the primary objectives of this research were: (i) to determine the governing mechanisms and relevant properties of geosynthetics that contribute to the enhanced performance of pavement systems; (ii) to develop appropriate analytical, laboratory and field methods that are capable of quantifying the above properties for geosynthetics; and (iii) to enable the prediction of pavement performance depending on the various types of geosynthetics used. To fulfill these three objectives, an evaluative, laboratory and field study was performed. The improved performance of pavements due to addition of geosynthetics was attributed to the ability of geosynthetics to laterally restrain the base course material, thereby providing a confinement effect to the pavement. A parameter to quantify the soil-geosynthetic interaction at low displacement magnitudes based on the solution of an analytical model for geosynthetics confined in pullout box was proposed. The pullout tests were then conducted on various geosynthetics to obtain the proposed parameter for various geosynthetics. The quantitative magnitude of the parameter value from the laboratory tests was compared with the qualitative performance observed in the field test sections. Overall, a good agreement was obtained between the laboratory and field results, thereby providing confidence in the ability of the proposed analytical model to predict the governing mechanism for geosynthetic reinforced pavements.