Development of an expert system facilitating the selection of a mix for an asphalt pavement and analysis of fatigue tests

This thesis is aimed at developing a decision support system for facilitating the selection of an appropriate mix for an asphalt pavement. This system is designed with the new pavement engineer in mind who does not have sufficient experience to make an informed judgment about the mix selection. The system takes structural and traffic characteristics as well as climatic conditions as input, and outputs the mix and the binder type as well as other relevant information about the design parameters according to the knowledge collected from surveys by experts, laboratory testing and relevant information databases. Four point beam bending fatigue tests have been carried out as a part of the laboratory tests to acquire knowledge about the fatigue response of the different mixes for the decision support system. The secondary goals of carrying out the tests were to evaluate the test procedure and to identify the advantages of using modified binders with respect to the fatigue life of the various mixes