Climate and Groundwater Data to Support Mechanistic-Empirical Design in South Dakota

Details

• Creators:
  Cetin, Bora ; Schwartz, Charles W. ; Forman, Barton A ; Roberts, Lance A ; Gribb, Molly M
• Corporate Creators:
  South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
• Corporate Contributors:
  South Dakota. Department of Transportation. Office of Research
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Climate Groundwater Mechanistic-empirical Pavement Design Pavement Design Pavement Distress Risk Assessment Spatial Analysis Statistical Analysis Weather Conditions
• Publication/ Report Number:
  SD2013-05-F
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  South Dakota;United States
• Edition:
  Final Report 12/22/2013-05/31/15
• Corporate Publisher:
  South Dakota. Department of Transportation. Office of Research
• Abstract:
  The analysis methodology in the AASHTO mechanistic pavement design guide (MEPDG) places a strong emphasis on the influence of climate conditions and groundwater on the prediction of pavement performance. The accuracy and reliability of these data are crucial for accurate and reliable pavement structure design. This report summarizes the quality of climate and groundwater data collected from different sources that are available in South Dakota, and compares pavement performance predictions for asphalt concrete and jointed plain concrete pavements calculated using three different climate data sources. These sources include weather stations embedded in the AASHTOWare® Pavement ME Design™ software, ground-based weather stations (GBWS) and NASA`s Modern-Era Retrospective Research Analysis (MERRA). The results of this study indicate that MEPDG predictions calculated with MERRA, GBWS and MEPDG weather station data were similar. Results also indicate that use of MERRA data has many advantages over GBWS and MEPDG weather data, such as (1) greater and more uniform spatial coverage area; (2) longer periods of continuous climate data; and (3) higher quality data.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  311182
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:f9f7e4d3b3ef41dba3c4c238042ca1de767c3c7fb34052fce159b2491938c6b382b382280a22bb5e1e6ceaa9d5426af7fd50682b84c8f45100b9bf6913da9c47
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/77698/dot_77698_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.94 MB ]