2006 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation
Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel, Vancouver, BC, Canada
July 16-21, 2006
Optimization of pavement design using a genetic algorithm
Andy Pryke, Harry Evdorides and Rawya Abu Ermaileh
Abstract— The design of road pavements is an engineering
problem with a number of required design inputs. Although
many analytical methods are in use, the existing methods do not
explicitly include optimization processes whereby the design of
pavement may be linked to criteria and associated objectives
different from the conventional engineering-driven ones. This
paper presents a prototype system that demonstrates how an
analytical pavement design procedure can be optimized using a
genetic algorithm. The approach considered is flexible as it can
be used to optimize any computerized pavement design method.
In addition, the results obtained from the system are
comparable with those derived from a well known method. It is
felt therefore that this exemplar prototype system may be
further developed to cater for any type of road pavements and
to include more complex optimization procedures.
I. INTRODUCTION
R oad pavements are complicated structures which are
subjected to a variety of traffic loading and
environmental conditions. Pavement design systems aim to
cope with this complication in an effective and efficient
way. The design procedure used should enable the selection
of a pavement design that provides adequate performance as
well as adequate distribution of life cycle cost [2]. As there
are many design options, searching through these to identify
the optimum solution is often time consuming and
expensive.
The work described in this paper aims to investigate how
the optimization of flexible pavement design may be
facilitated using evolutionary algorithms. In particular, the
process seeks to optimize the selection of thickness and
material for the pavement layers in addition to finding the
most economical pavement structure for the input traffic
data.
II. PAVEMENT STRUCTURAL DESIGN
The design of flexible pavements involves a study of soils
and paving materials, their behavior under load and the
design of the pavement structure to carry that load under all
climatic conditions [9]. The philosophy of the analytical
approach to pavement design is that the structure may be
treated in the same way as other civil engineering structures,
the procedure for which may be summarized as follows [4]:
specifying loading; estimate size of components and
determine materials; structural analysis to estimate
performance. This procedure is iterated with changes to
materials or geometry until a satisfactory design is achieved.
Optimizing the thickness of pavement layers is the
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ultimate aim of flexible pavement design [1], and there are
typically several designs which satisfy the requirements,
each with differing construction costs.
Several design methods have been developed which help
in the choice of the optimum thickness and material of the
different layers for a given design specification. Pavement
design methods are either empirical or analytical. Generally
the former require the designer to refer to design tables,
charts and formulas, and the latter use a computer model in
conjunction with performance relationships to define a
suitable design. However, designers may stop after a few
iterations, before an optimum design is reached as the
procedures are not fully automated. In addition the
optimization process is limited to the criteria of the design
method used and may not include other external criteria such
as cost. Here we present a simple system which automates
the search for a multi-objective optimum pavement design,
replacing the need for manual search.
III. THE PROPOSED DESIGN PROCESS
Automated design optimization requires the following:
• An objective function to be optimized .
• A set of design variables which affect the value of the
objective function.
• A set of design constraints.
In this case, we decided that:
• The objective function should aim to minimize the
construction costs of the pavement.
• The design variables would be the layer thicknesses
and material choices.
• The design constraints would be the design
parameters that are associated with the ability of the
pavement to withstand a given level of traffic,
maximum and minimum thicknesses for particular
materials.
The output of the system would be the optimum design
found, consisting of: the number of layers; the combination
of materials; the thickness for each layer; and the total cost
for the pavement.
A. Design Constraints - Analyzing Pavement
Performance
The design of pavement structures is carried out with
regard to the ability of the pavement to withstand traffic and
environmental loading during a predefined period of time
(design life) which is usually 20 years. This is expressed in
terms of the number of standard axle loads to failure.
Conventionally, two forms of failure are considered, fatigue
cracking and rutting. Several computer models capable of
computing stresses and strains associated with these two
defects for any given combination of loading, materials, and
layer thicknesses have been developed and widely used.
Models can be based on elastic, visco-elastic theories or on
finite element analysis techniques [7]. However in this study
the Method of Equivalent Thickness (MET) was used to
calculate pavement performance because it is simple, fast to
calculate and most importantly it gives reasonably accurate
results. It is worth noting however that MET can only model
pavement structures in which the stiffness of materials
decreases with depth and that its accuracy decreases with
increasing the number of layers. Only a single operating
temperature is considered, and the effect of temperature on
the stiffness of asphalt layers has been incorporated into the
material properties.
B. Optimization Process
The process aims to find the optimum combination of
pavement layers and available materials which can carry the
expected traffic safely during the design period. An optimal
design is defined as the one that most economically meets
these performance requirements.
The system as a whole allows analyses of pavement
structures with between three and to six layers. For each
layer up to three alternative materials can be tried. The
system uses Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimization to find a
solution for each number of layers and each possible
combination of materials. These solutions are compared and
the most optimal is identified. Future work could integrate
these choices into the genetic algorithm optimization.
GAs are a popular method for a variety of complex
optimization problems. They require little knowledge about
the problem being solved, are easy to implement, robust, and
inherently parallel [3].
1) Objective Function and Design Variables
In this paper, only the initial construction costs of building
the pavement structure is considered, though predicted
maintenance costs could be incorporated in future work
Mathematically, this is expressed as the objective function
formulated by the equation below
C c (Ta ) = ∑ t i × u i
where Cc(Ta) is the initial construction cost of original
pavement structure in £/m2. ui is the unit cost of the
pavement material in £/m3; ti is the thickness of various
pavement layers.
2) Design Variables
The design variables are the thickness of pavement layers
(ti ), choice of pavement materials (which determines unit
cost, ui ), and the number of layers within the pavement
structure. These factors can be varied to acquire an optimum
design which minimizes the construction cost and satisfies
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the required constraints.
3) Design Constraints and Control Variables
The optimization is subject to the following design
constraints:
t min ≤ ti ≤ t max and ti ≤ t drainage (for drainage layers) and
n ≤ ( N f and n ≤ N r )
where [tmin, tmax] is the practical range of thicknesses of
various pavement layers; tdrainage is the required thickness
determined by the drainage criteria; n is the required design
life in load repetitions; Nf is the number of load repetitions
to fatigue failure; Nr is the number of load repetitions to
rutting failure. Nf and Nr are calculated using MET and an
appropriate pavement performance model.
4) Representation of Design Parameters
Solutions are encoded as binary strings, with each numerical
value taking up 5 bits, giving 32 possible values. Future
work will include real value representations, direct
representation of variable numbers of layers, and choice of
materials.
5) Evolutionary Process
Basic Algorithm
1) The initial population of solutions is generated at
random;
2) Designs that violate constraints are replaced
3) A fitness value is calculated for each individual in the
population.
4) Roulette-wheel selection is used to select parents
5) Single point crossover and mutation are applied with
specified probabilities.
Constraint handling
In addition to the design criteria, the system allows users
to specify constraints on the materials to be used and their
possible combinations along with the maximum and
minimum layer thickness. These reflect the practical
constraints for the local conditions. During execution,
solutions that violate the constraints are discarded. This is
not problematic as there are many feasible solutions
generated. Although it is possible to incorporate a fitness
penalty method [5], highly constrained problems are not
considered in the present study, and the system appears to
perform well with this simple method.
6) Parameterization of the GA
Population size
The population size was set at 200. The analysis
performed indicated that larger population sizes did not lead
to much improvement in results.
 TABLE 1
INPUT DATA OBTAINED FROM SHELL MANUAL [8]

Genetic operators Parameter Value

Basic one-point crossover and a simple mutation operator Cumulative number of ESA 60, 35, 18, 6
are used in the system and their probabilities have been set or 1.2 Msa
according by trial and error. The sub-grade Strength 50MPa
Stopping criteria Poisson’s ratio of sub-grade 0.35
Modulus of unbound granular layer 400MPa
The process is stopped after 200 generations. This number
Poisson’s ratio of unbound granular layer 0.35
was determined by running the system on various test Unit cost of granular material 72£/m3
problems. The value was chosen to strike a balance between Modulus of asphalt layer 5000
allowing enough generations to reach asymptotic Poisson’s ratio of asphalt layer 0.35
performance and a having a reasonable amount of Unit cost of asphalt material 20£/m3
computational time for each run.

IV. TESTING AND COMPARISON

TABLE 2
COMPARISON WITH SHELL DESIGN METHOD DESIGNS
A. Comparison with Other Methods
To validate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the
Traffic Load
approach methodology, the results from the system were 60 35 18 6 1.2
(Msa)
compared with those from existing design methods using
Shell Asphalt thickness
data found in the literature. The design data used in this (Sub-base 270 250 230 190 140
(mm)
system, for example the traffic data, sub-grade condition, = 200mm Cost
paving materials, their properties, drainage data and cost (£/m2)
23.5 22 20.6 17.7 14.1
have been selected for a typical single carriageway with two GA Asphalt thickness
lanes road. A full specification is shown in table 1. (Sub-base 270 240 210 180 130
(mm)
= 200mm)
Cost
1) Shell Design Method 23.5 21.3 19.1 16.8 13.5
(£/m2)
The Shell Design Method [8] specifies a standard GA Sub-base
thickness for the sub-base layer of 200mm. For comparison (Sub-base thickness 450 420 450 320 250
purposes, the GA based system was evaluated twice, once optimized) (mm)
with a fixed sub-base thickness of 200mm and once with the Asphalt thickness
160 140 120 120 100
thickness of this layer allowed to vary. The thicknesses of (mm)
unbound sub-base layers and asphalt layers shown in table 2 Cost
20.5 18.5 18.2 14.8 12.2
were obtained from charts in the Shell design manual. The (£/m2)
analysis is carried out using both the prototype system and
the shell design criteria and the results can be shown in table
2 and figure 1
The results show that the GA-based system gives a
reduction in the pavement thicknesses and hence in the total
cost. However, care must be taken in this comparison since
different analysis models have been employed in the two
methods.

Fig. 1. Cost Comparisons across design methods

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 [8] Shell International Petroleum Company Limited (1978), Shell
Pavement Design Manual, London
V. CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK [9] Yoder, E.J. and Witczak, M.W., (1975), Principles of Pavement
The pavement optimization problem developed in this Design, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
study has a simple analytical model which could be
approached using a hill climbing method . Nevertheless, this
methodology can be considered as a platform to build on for
more complex models as well as other objective functions or
multi-objective functions which can be used in the pavement
management systems.
As total life cycle cost could be incorporated in the cost
prediction function. The system has been developed for
flexible pavements, it could be modified for rigid pavement
design. Finite element method and layered elastic theory
could also be investigated. These models have a longer
running time but are suitable for a wide range of problems.
The GA based optimization could be improved by the use
of a real number, rather than binary, representation and by
incorporating the choice of materials into the chromosome
representation.
Finally, it should be noted that in spite of these
shortcomings, a GA-based methodology provides an
effective and practical tool in solving pavement design
problems.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The concept of pavement design optimization using
genetic algorithms was effected by the Transport
Collaborative Research Network of the University of
Birmingham and developed by R. A. Ermaileh[6]. The
contribution of Mr. Jinping Li, visiting fellow at the
University of Birmingham, to the development of the model
is acknowledged.

REFERENCES
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[4] Brown, S. F. (1984), Computer Programmes for the Analytical Design
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