Courtesy: pavementinteractive.

org
In the U.S., lots of people
drive.

Population 296,410,404
Driver Age 231,323,688 78%
Licensed Drivers 200,548,972 68%
Registered Vehicles 241,193,974

Data from FHWA Highway Statistics 2005

Lots of money is in driving.

2005 Tax Receipts $28.8 billion

Distributed $25.9 billion
Roads-related $19.5 billion
Non-highway $6.4 billion
The U.S. has lots of roads.
Miles
1 United States 4.01 million
2 India 2.39 million
3 China 1.12 million
4 Brazil 1.07 million
5 Canada 0.88 million

Data from the Economist Pocket World in Figures, 2007 Edition

About 63% of U.S. roads are paved.
That’s a very high percentage.

Most (95%) of paved roads

have an HMA surface.
United States
Centerline Miles 4.01 million
Paved 2.58 million
HMA Surface 2.34 million
PCC Surface 0.24 million
 Roads get a lot of use…
United States Washington
Vehicle Miles in 55.5 billion
3.0 trillion
2004
Per Vehicle 12,438 9,913
Per Capita 10,121 8,827

Data from FHWA Highway Statistics 2005

…and their use is growing.
Fast.

Data from FHWA Highway Statistics 2005

 Photo courtesy of Joe Block

Why do we need pavements and

why do we make them out of HMA
and PCC?
 Dirt Road
Olympic Peninsula (ca. 1924)

Washington Localities Collection, UW Digital Collections

 Muddy Dirt Road
County Road near Index, WA (1911)

UW Digital Collections
From Clay McShane’s Down the Asphalt Path, The Automobile and the American City (1994)
Cobblestone Road
E Republican St., Seattle
Macadam
 Plank Road
Front St., Port Angeles (1914)

Asahel Curtis Photo Company Collection, UW Digital Collections

 Woodblock Paving
Macquarie St., Sydney, Australia (1925)

From the City of Sydney's Sydney Streets exhibition (www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/history/SydneyStreets)

 Brick Road
James St. from 4th Ave., Seattle (ca. 1922)

Seattle Photograph Collection, UW Digital Collections

 Woodblock Paving Overlaid with Hot Mix Asphalt
Park St., Sydney, Australia (1929)

From the City of Sydney's Sydney Streets exhibition (www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/history/SydneyStreets)

Warrenite Pavement
Bothell Rd. (1912)

Industries and Occupations Photographs, UW Digital Collections

Warrenite Pavement
Bothell Rd. (1912)

Industries and Occupations Photographs, UW Digital Collections

 Types of Pavement in Major U.S. Cities
100%

90%
Unpaved
80%

70%

Granite Block
Percentage

60%
Other
Brick/Concrete
50%

40%
Cobblestone
Macadam/Gravel Wood
30%

20% Asphalt

10%

%
1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930
Year
From Clay McShane, Down the Asphalt Path, the Automobile and the American City (1994)
Early Highway Pavements
Front Street, Chicago
Built in 1905, Lasted 60
years

Woodward Ave,
Detroit
Built in 1909,
First mile of PCC
 Early Highway Pavements
(cont.)
 Pine Bluff, Ark
 Built in 1913
 24 miles long, 5” thick
 Referred to as the
“Dollarway”
 Motorists would travel
great distances to be able
to drive up to 45 mph
 It’s preserved in a rest
area along U.S. 6
 The “First”
Highway Bill
 By 1916, there were
10,000 autos in the
U.S. operating mostly
on unpaved roads
 In 1916 Federal
Highway Act was
enacted
 Lobbied by bicyclists
organization “Wheelman
of America”
 1956 Interstate Highway Act.
 A 41,000 mile
interconnected
network of limited
access highways.
The majority of
interstate highways
were constructed in
the 1960’s and 70’s.
1957 PCA Illustration
Function of Pavement
Structure
 Good surface
 Smoothness, friction, drainage control, noise
control…
 Structural support
 Provide strength
 Distribute load
 Drainage
 Subgrade protection
 frost
Pavement Types
 Flexible Pavement
 Hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavements
 Called "flexible" since the total pavement structure bends (or
flexes) to accommodate traffic loads
 About 82.2% of paved U.S. roads use flexible pavement
 About 95.7% of paved U.S. roads are surfaced with HMA

 Rigid Pavement
 Portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements
 Called “rigid” since PCC’s high modulus of elasticity does not allow
them to flex appreciably
 About 6.5% of paved U.S. roads use rigid pavement

Courtesy: Steve Muench

 Flexible Pavement

 Structure
 Surface course
 Base course
 Subbase course
 Subgrade

Courtesy: Steve Muench

Types of Flexible Pavement

Dense-graded

Open-graded Gap-graded
Courtesy: Steve Muench
Flexible Pavement – Construction

Courtesy: Steve Muench

 Rigid Pavement
 Structure
 Surface course
 Base course
 Subbase course
 Subgrade

Courtesy: Steve Muench

 Types of Rigid Pavement
 Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement (JPCP)

Courtesy: Steve Muench

 Types of Rigid Pavement
 Continuously Reinforced Concrete
Pavement (CRCP)

Courtesy: Steve Muench Photo from the Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute
 Rigid Pavement – Construction

Slipform

Fixed form

Courtesy: Steve Muench

Pavement Design
 Several typical methods
 Design catalog
 Empirical
 1993 AASHTO method
 Mechanistic-empirical
 New AASHTO method
Empirical Design
 Early pavement design methods were
empirical and based on the results of
various road tests
 Bates Road Test
 Maryland Road Test
 AASHO Road Test
 Others
Pavement Design—
Where are We??
State-of-Practice State-of-the-Art

Empirical Mechanistic-
Mechanistic
Empirical

Actual Current
Practice??
(Schwartz, 2001)
Empirical vs. Mechanistic-
Based Design

P Wood Floor Joist

d Example

Empirical “Rule of 2”:

d in inches= (L in feet / 2) + 2
L
Mechanistic:
PL
sbending=  sallowable
4S
(Schwartz, 2001)
Traditional Approach to
Pavement Design
 Overwhelmingly empirical
 Dependent on conditions remaining
the same
 Primary focus on structural design
 Limited attention to failure modes
 Definitions
 Empirical Design
 Based on results of experiments or experience
 Requires many observations to establish links
between design variables and performance
 Not necessary to establish scientific basis of
observed relationships
 Example: AASHTO design methodology
 Definitions
 Mechanistic Design
 Purely scientific approach
 Relies on mechanics of structural behavior to loading
 Fundamental material properties must be known
 Geometric properties of the structure being loaded
also need to be known precisely
 Examples: There is no truly mechanistic pavement
design procedure
 Definitions
 Mechanistic-Empirical Design
 Combines both mechanistic and empirical aspects
 Mechanistic component involves determining
pavement responses due to loading through
mathematical models
 Empirical component relates the pavement responses
to pavement performance
 Each key distress type is associated with a critical
pavement response
Examples of AC M-E Pavement
Design Procedures
 Mechanistically-based design
 Shell method (1977)
 Asphalt Institute (1982)
 NCHRP Project 1-26 (1992)
 South African M-E design (1992)
 Illinois, Kentucky, Washington, Minnesota
 AASHTO Pavement ME Design (Earlier
called AASHTO 2002 Design Guide,
MEPDG, and DARWin ME)
Examples of PCC M-E
Pavement Design Procedures
 Mechanistically-based design
 Westergaard’s equations (1926)
 PCA fatigue-based design (1933, 1966, 1984)
 RISC (1985)
 NCHRP Study 1-26 (1990, 1992)
 AASHTO Rigid Supplement (1998)
 Illinois, Kentucky
 AASHTO Pavement ME Design (Earlier called
AASHTO 2002 Design Guide, MEPDG, and DARWin
ME)
Factors Contributing to
Improved Design Procedures
 Experimental investigations with test
tracks
 Improvements in pavement analysis
procedures
 Improvements in pavement materials
characterization
 National and regional level pavement
performance studies
The AASHTO Empirical Design
Example

AASHO RT

(AASHO, 1961)
 AASHO Road Test
The AASHO Road Test was
conceived and sponsored by
the American Association of
State Highway Officials to
study the performance of
pavement structures of
known thickness under
moving loads of known
magnitude and frequency.
AASHO Road Test (late 1950s)

80% of highway
agencies (approx.)
use AASHTO DG.

(AASHO, 1961)
One Subgrade Type….

(AASHO, 1961)
1950’s Construction….

(AASHO, 1961)
1950’s Traffic Loads….

(AASHO, 1961)
Limited Traffic Applications….
PAVEMENT THICKNESS

Data
Limits
(AASHO
Road
Test)

      Current
Designs
0 > 100 Million
AXLE LOAD REPETITIONS
Other Issues
 One climatic zone
 One base type
 No subdrainage
 Higher than normal construction quality
 Crude performance measure and model
 Limited incorporation of reliability
Changing Conditions
 New materials
 Superpave mixes
 Stone matrix asphalt (SMA)
 Recycled materials
 High strength cements
 New construction procedures
 Ultra-thin white topping
 Automatic dowel inserters
Pavement Design—
So Where Are We???

Although AASHO Road Test has

served us remarkably well to date, it is
now time for something better...
Mechanistic-Empirical
Approach
 Accounts for new materials, traffic
loads, and construction procedures
 All design features affecting pavement
performance considered
 Primary focus on pavement
performance
 Current AASHTO vs M-E
Design Guide
Wide range of structural /rehab designs 50+ million loads

Limited structural sections 1.1 million load reps

AASHO Road Test

AASHTO Design Guide

1 climate/2 years 1 set of materials

All climates over 20-40 years New & diverse materials

Mechanistic-Empirical Design
Framework and Components
 Inputs
Structure Materials Traffic Climate

Both mean and standard deviations inputs are required

Selection of Trial Design

Revise trial design

Structural Responses (s, e, d)

Performance Prediction
Distresses Smoothness
Design
Reliability
Design
Performance Verification Requirements
Failure criteria Satisfied? No

Yes

Final Design
Key Components of the M-E
Design Framework
 Inputs
 Structural response models
 Performance prediction
 Failure criteria
 Design reliability
Inputs

 Site-related inputs (these cannot be altered

economically)
 Traffic—ESALs or load spectra
 Subgrade—engineering properties, strength, modulus
 Climate—precipitation, temperature
 Design-related inputs (the designer has control over
these properties)
 Pavement structural section—thicknesses, layer types
 Paving materials—strength, modulus
Inputs
 The degree of sophistication of inputs is
a function of
 Structural response model
 Transfer functions
 Reliability methodology
 M-E procedures can handle complex
materials and traffic inputs
 Non-linear material characterization
 Variability of inputs
Key Components of the M-E
Design Framework
 Inputs
 Structural response models

 Performance prediction

 Failure criteria

 Design reliability
 Structural Response Models
 Help determine pavement responses as
a function of applied load (traffic or
environmental) Climate Load
 Stress
 Strain Structure

 Deflection

Response
 Structural Response Models
State-of-Practice State-of-the-Art

Asphalt
Burmister MLET 2D FEM 3D FEM
Pavements

State-of-Practice State-of-the-Art

Influence Concrete
Westergaard 2D FEM 3D FEM
Diagrams Pavements
Key Components of the M-E
Design Framework
 Inputs
 Structural response models

 Performance prediction

 Failure criteria

 Design reliability
Key Flexible Pavement
Performance Indicators??
 Fatigue Cracking – Bottom-up
 Fatigue Cracking – Top-down
 Permanent Deformation (Rutting)
 HMAC Thermal Cracking

 Ride Quality (Smoothness)

Fatigue Cracking

Causes?? Load, Climate, Materials

Longitudinal Cracking In the
Wheel Path
Pavement Ride Quality
International Roughness Index (IRI)
Speed = 80 km/h

=
 (Vertical Distance)
Horizontal Distance

(“Little Book”, 1998)

How to Predict Distress?
Pavement
Distress
Response
TRANSFER
FUNCTIONS
Distress-Response
Correlation– AC
Distress Type Relevant Critical Response

 Fatigue cracking  Tensile strain in AC

 Permanent layer
deformation  Vertical subgrade
strain,
plastic flow in AC,
 Low-temp cracking stresses in unbound
 Thermal fatigue base
cracking  Tensile stress in AC
 Tensile strain in AC
Performance Prediction

Distress

OR
DAMAGE

Time/
Traffic
Key Components of the M-E
Design Framework
 Input module
 Structural response models

 Performance prediction

 Failure criteria

 Design reliability
Failure Criteria
 The success or failure of the selected
trial design is determined by checking
the predicted distresses and
smoothness against agency-input failure
criteria
 The design can fail if
 The predicted distress is greater than the
allowable
 The predicted smoothness is unacceptable
Key Components of the M-E
Design Framework
 Input module
 Structural response models

 Performance prediction

 Failure criteria

 Design reliability
Design Reliability
 Practically everything associated with
pavement design is variable
 Variability in mean design inputs—traffic,
materials, subgrade, climate, and so on
 Error in performance prediction models
 In M-E design, each variability can be
modeled separately or can be lumped
and applied as an adjustment factor
NCHRP 1-37A Design Guide
Software (MEPDG)

MEPDG (2004)
Review
 Pavement design is undergoing a
gradual shift towards M-E design
 M-E design procedures link pavement
structural responses to its performance
 Pavement distresses and smoothness
are key performance indicators in most
approaches
 Failure criteria are set on individual
distresses or smoothness
Review
 Components of the M-E design framework
 Inputs
 Structural response computation
 Distress and smoothness transfer functions or
performance models
 Failure criteria
 Reliability
 The main goal of M-E design is to maintain
the key distresses and ride quality at
optimum levels