United States Department of Transportation
i
Application of Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Approach Into RCC Pavement Thickness Design
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2022-12-01
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[PDF-6.15 MB]
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Edition:Final Report June 2019 – May 2022
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Abstract:As a durable, economical, and low-maintenance concrete material, roller compacted concrete (RCC) is steadily becoming the preferred choice for many highway pavement applications. However, the current RCC pavement thickness design procedures are solely empirically based, not following the state-of-practice of the mechanistic-empirical (M-E) pavement design approach. In addition, the fatigue models used in the available RCC pavement thickness design procedures have generally been found to over-predict pavement fatigue damage under in situ heavy truck loading. In this study, the field fatigue performance of RCC pavements were determined from an accelerated pavement testing (APT) experiment on six full-scale RCC pavement sections. Load-induced pavement responses and temperature-related strains were monitored using two embedded fiber-optical strain plates and verified using in situ non-destructive test results and finite element modeling. To further evaluate the performance of RCC fatigue cracking, a comprehensive beam fatigue test experiment was performed using 68 field saw-cut RCC slab samples from APT sections to investigate the fatigue behavior of in situ RCC pavements. This is the first research study to investigate the fatigue behavior of field RCC beam samples prepared and constructed with a high-density asphalt-type paver and a vibratory roller. The results indicate that a well-compacted RCC pavement can achieve higher flexural strength and exhibit better fatigue life than conventional concrete pavement. Based on the beam fatigue test results and in situ fatigue performance of APT test sections, an RCC fatigue-life model was developed, providing a more accurate solution for estimating the allowable number of load repetitions of RCC pavements subjected to vehicular fatigue loading. This model was then calibrated into an RCC pavement fatigue design transfer function based on the APT performance observed, which could be used in RCC thickness design procedures to determine the optimum RCC design thickness and long-term fatigue performance of RCC pavements for roadway application. Finally, a M-E based RCC pavement thickness design procedure was proposed in this study. The proposed M-E design procedure was based on the current AASHTO Pavement M-E Design framework and applied the research findings obtained in this study. Following the proposed design procedure, a step-by-step RCC thickness design example was presented.
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