Calibrating the mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide for Kansas.

Details

• Creators:
  Sun, Xiaohui ; Han, Jie ; Parsons, Robert L. ; Misra, Anil ; Thakur, Jitendra K.
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Kansas. Dept. of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Mechanistic-empirical pavement design
  • Calibration
  • Pavement performance
  • Rigid pavements
  • Flexible pavements
  • Pavement distress
• Publication/ Report Number:
  KS-14-17
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Kansas
• Corporate Publisher:
  Kansas. Dept. of Transportation. Bureau of Materials & Research
• Abstract:
  The Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) is moving toward the implementation of the new American ; Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) ; for pavement design. The MEPDG provides a rational pavement design framework based on mechanistic-empirical principles to ; characterize the effects of climate, traffic, and material properties on the pavement performance, as compared with the 1993 ; AASHTO Guide for Design of Pavement Structures. Before moving to the MEPDG, the nationally calibrated MEPDG distress ; prediction models need to be further validated and calibrated to the local condition. ; The objective of this research was to improve the accuracy of the MEPDG to predict the pavement performance in ; Kansas. This objective was achieved by evaluating the MEPDG-predicted performance of Kansas projects, as compared with the ; pavement performance data from the pavement management system (PMS), and calibrating the MEPDG models based on the ; pavement performance data. In this study, 28 flexible pavement projects and 32 rigid pavement projects with different material ; properties, traffic volumes, and climate conditions were strategically selected throughout Kansas. The AASHTO ME Design ; software (Version 1.3) was used in this study. ; The comparisons between the MEPDG-predicted pavement performance using the nationally calibrated models and the ; measured pavement performance indicated the need for the calibration of the MEPDG models to the Kansas conditions. For new ; flexible pavements, the MEPDG using the nationally calibrated models overestimated the rutting due to the overprediction of the ; deformation of the subgrade layer. Biases also existed between the predicted top-down cracking, thermal cracking, and ; International Roughness Index (IRI) and the measured data. The relationship between the measured and the predicted IRIs was ; more obvious than that for the cracking. Using the coefficients determined through local calibration in this study, the biases and the ; standard errors were minimized for all the models based on the statistical analysis. ; For new rigid pavements, very low mean joint faulting was measured in actual projects as compared with the default ; threshold of the MEPDG. The type of base course had a minor effect on the pavement performance. The traditional splitting data ; method was adopted in the process of local calibration. After the local calibration, the biases between the predicted pavement ; performance (mean joint faulting and IRI) and the measured pavement performance were minimized, and the standard errors were ; reduced.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  C1931
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/28820/dot_28820_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 3.00 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:76361818c99229e03831d32a55c8cfa3325ec74504f77300e690cebff605317f