Development of Rehabilitation Strategies Based on Structural Capacity for Composite and Flexible Pavements

© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers. The selection of long-lasting and cost-effective rehabilitation strategies is crucial to pavement engineers. Development of rehabilitation and preservation decision trees and support tools that involve performance scores are pursued by agencies across the world. However, for the purpose of rehabilitation selection, pavement scores determined from pavement-distress surveys reveal flaws in capturing pavement needs. This paper introduces a rehabilitation methodology based on the application of a damage ratio estimated from falling-weight deflectometer (FWD) data, and a rutting index determined from a distress survey. A detailed project-level investigation was conducted on a series of flexible and composite (asphalt over an existing portland cement concrete layer) pavement sections from a high-traffic-volume interstate highway network. The study includes the evaluation of existing pavements through back-calculation of FWD data and monitoring field-distress data, conducting asphalt mixture laboratory testing as well as mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide and life cycle cost analysis. The results of analyses are used to develop a robust methodology and a series of time-based rehabilitation strategies for a network of flexible and composite pavement sections located in Oklahoma.

Development of Rehabilitation Strategies Based on Structural Capacity for Composite and Flexible Pavements Academic Article