7/22/2012

CENG 6302
PAVEMENT ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Alemgena Alene, PhD, MSc. BSc.
Email: alemgena@yahoo.com

Department of Civil Engineering

Ethiopian Institute of Technology (EiT) – Mekelle
Mekelle University

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

CENG 6305 Pavement Materials

Lecturer
Alemgena Alene, PhD

Email:
alemgena@yahoo.com

Room
109

Assistant
---

1
 7/22/2012

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

CENG 6302 Pavement Analysis & Design

Course content
Chapter Title
Ch1 Introduction
Ch2 Pavement Performance and Early Design
Ch3 Stresses and Strains in Flexible Pavements
Ch4 Loads on Pavements (ESA)
Ch5 Principle of Probabilistic Design Approaches
Ch6 Design for Rehabilitation and Upgrading
Ch7 Overview of Rigid Pavement Design
Ch8 Overview of Small Element Pavement Design
Ch9 Drainage and Road Embankment Design
Overview

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

CENG 6302 Pavement Analysis & Design

References
Ref.1 Yang H. Huang; Pavement Analysis and Design
Ref.2 Yoder and Witczak; Principles of Pavement
Ref.3 Norbert Delatte; Concrete Pavement Design, Construction and
Performance
Ref.4 A.A.A. Molenaar; Structural Design of Pavements Part III: Design of
Flexible Pavements (TU Delft lecture note)
Ref.5 A.A.A. Molenaar; Structural Design of Pavements Part VI
Ref.6 AASHTO; Guide for Design of Pavement Structures
Ref.7 ERA; Pavement Design Manual Vol. I Flexible Pavements
Ref.8 ERA; Pavement Design Manual Vol. I Rigid Pavements
Ref.9 ORN 31; A Guide to the Structural Design of Bitumen-Surfaced Roads
In Sub-tropical Countries

2
 7/22/2012

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

Couse module & evaluation

Lecture method Course Evaluation

• Attendance mandatory • Assignments 20%

• Interactive, please • Term Paper/ Design 30%

participate fully
• Final exam. 50%
• Reading assignments &
exercises

• Software Practice/Field
practice ??

CENG 6302
PAVEMENT ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUTION
Alemgena Alene, PhD, MSc. BSc.
Email: alemgena@yahoo.com

Department of Civil Engineering

Ethiopian Institute of Technology (EiT) – Mekelle
Mekelle University

3
 7/22/2012

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

INTRODUCTION
• What is pavement?

Dictionary.com
• Pavement: Noun
• a paved road, highway, etc.
• a paved surface, ground
covering, or floor.
• material used for paving
• Sidewalk
• Pave: Verb
• to cover or lay (a road, walk,
etc.) with concrete, stones,
bricks, tiles, wood, or the like,
so as to make a firm, level
surface.

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

What is Pavement: Wikipedia

• Pavement (material), the durable surfacing of roads and walkways
("road surface" in British English)
• Sidewalk, a walkway along the side of a road, in American English
("pavement" in British English and Philadelphia dialect)
• Pavement (architecture), a floor-like stone or tile structure
• Pavement (band), an indie rock band from Stockton, California
• Pavement (magazine), a youth culture magazine, published in New
Zealand
• Pavement Records, a record label
• Portuguese pavement, the traditional paving used in most pedestrian
areas in Portugal ("Calçada Portuguesa" in Portuguese)
• Road surface marking, highway surface markings intended to convey
information
• Limestone pavement, a naturally occurring level outcrop
• Tessellated pavement, a rare sedimentary rock formation that occurs
on some ocean shores

4
 7/22/2012

Pavement Purpose
To provide a surface that is:
• Strong
• Surface strength
• Moisture control
DC to Richmond Road in 1919
• Smooth
• Safe
• Friction
• Drainage

• Economical
• Initial construction cost
Recurring maintenance cost

Pavement Significance
• How much pavement till 2002 E.C.?
• Federal roads - 21,650 km (about 50% asphalt surfaced)
• Regional - 27,350 km
• Total 49,000 km all weather roads

• Excluding 86,000 km dry weather roads

• Planned GTP (2003 – 2007 E.C)

• 10,082 km Federal roads construction and upgrading
• 11,212 km Regional roads construction and upgrading
• 71,523 km Woreda roads construction and upgrading (URRAP)
• 89,349 km Federal roads maintenance
• 33,280 km Regional roads maintenance

5
 7/22/2012

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

Pavement Design
Historical development
• Although PD gradually evolved from art to
science, empiricism still plays an important
role till present day

• Prior to the early 1920s the thickness of

pavement was based purely experience

• The same thickness for a section of highway

at different soils

Pavement Types
• Flexible Pavement
• Hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavements
• Called "flexible" since the total
pavement structure bends (or flexes)
to accommodate traffic loads
• Analyzed by Burmister’s layered
theory

• Structure
• Surface course
(waterproof, anti-skid)
• Base course
• Subbase course
• Subgrade

6
 7/22/2012

Design of New and Reconstructed

Flexible Pavements
• Flexible Pavements
• Conventional
- From high to inferior mat. top to
bottom
- Economical possible use of local
materials
• Deep Strength

• Full Depth
- Can be considered as most
cost-effective and dependable
for heavy traffic where local
materials are not available
• “Semi-Rigid”

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

I II III IV
50 mm AC 50 mm AC 50 mm PAC 200 mm polymer
150 mm crushed 150 mm crushed 200 mm AC modified AC
base base 300 mm 600 mm lean
150 mm granular 150 mm cement unbound base cement concrete
subbase treated subbase of recycled mat base
Subgrade Subgrade Subgrade Subgrade

SCHIPHOL
ETH SA NL AIRPORT
AMSTERDAM

7
 7/22/2012

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

• Rigid Pavement
• Portland cement concrete
(PCC) pavements
• Called “rigid” since PCC’s high
modulus of elasticity does not
allow them to flex appreciably
• Analyzed by plate theory,
instead of layered theory

• Structure
• Surface course
• Base course
• Subbase course (Opt)
• Subgrade

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

Types of Concrete Pavements

• Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements (JPCP)
• Constructed with closely spaced construction joints
• Dowels or aggregate interlocks may be used for load transfer

• Jointed Reinforced Concrete Pavements (JRCP)

• Reinforcement in the form of wire mesh
• Allow the use of longer joint spacing
• Reinforcement increases with the increase of in joint spacing

• Continuous Reinforced Concrete Pavement (CRCP)

• Elimination of joints
• Would decrease the thickness of pavement required
• Transverse cracking at relatively close interval

8
 7/22/2012

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

• Prestressed Concrete Pavements (PCP)

• Tensile stress due to traffic load reduced and decrease the
thickness

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

9
 7/22/2012

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

Pavement design
Popular perception Harsh Reality
• Pavement geometry is very
simple but everything else is
“Pavements are very very complex
simple engineered
systems.” • Material - Environment
• Availability temperature
• Behavior moisture
• Traffic loads - Distress
• Volume variety
• Magnitude interaction
• Dynamic effects - Construction

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

Pavement Design methods

• Method of flexible pavement design can be
classified into five categories:
Empirical methods with and without a soil strength test
• Without - soil classification system of subgrade soil 1929
• With - California bearing ratio (CBR) since 1929
• Disadvantage - applied only to a given set of conditions, no
longer valid when changed
Limiting shear failure method
• Design for no shear failure will occur such as using c & 
• Such as using Terzaghi’s bearing capacity formula 1946
• Should be designed for riding comfort than for barely shear
failure

10
 7/22/2012

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

Limiting deflection method

• Design so that the vertical deflection will not exceed the
allowable limit
• Modified Boussinesq’s equation and limited the subgrade
deflection to 2.5 mm.
• Failures are caused by excessive stress and strain instead
of deflection
Regression method on pavement performance or road
test
• Eg. AASTHO method based on results of road tests
• Disadvantage – equations can be applied only to the
condition at the road test site

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

 Mechanistic – empirical method

• Based on the mechanics of materials
• Relates an input (such as wheel load) to an output or pavement
response (such as stress or strain)
• Response are used to predict distress from lab-test and field-
performance data
• Performance data is necessary because theory alone has not
proven sufficient to design

Axle
Load

Surface SUR dSUR

Base/Subbase SUB
Subgrade Soil

11
 7/22/2012

7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT

Method of rigid pavement design

• Analytical solutions
• Goldbeck’s formula
• Pavement as a cantilever beam with a load concentrated at the corner

• Westergaard’s analysis based on liquid foundations

• Most extensive theoretical studies on stresses and deflectionsn in concrete
pavements
• Equations due to temperature curling

• Numerical Solutions
• DEM
• FEM

• Other developments
• Fatigue of concrete
• Pumping
• probabilistic

Road Composition

Vehi cle

Black Topping

Base Road
Crust
Sub Base

500mm Sub Grade

450
Embankment
Ground Level

12
 7/22/2012

Design Process

Inputs
• General information
• Site/Project Identification
• Analysis Parameters
• Traffic
• Climate
• Drainage and Surface Properties
• Pavement Structure

13
 7/22/2012

General Information

• Design Life

• Base/subgrade construction

• Pavement construction

• Traffic opening month

Site/Project Identification
• Project Location
• Project Identification
• Functional Class
• Freeway/expressway
• Trunk
• Link
• Main Access
• Collector
• Feeder

14
 7/22/2012

Traffic
• ESAL Approach
• Data required
• Base year truck traffic volume
• Vehicle operation speed
• Truck traffic directional and lane distribution factors
• Vehicle class distribution
• Axle load distribution factors
• Axle and wheel base configurations
• Tire characteristics & Inflation pressures
• Truck lateral distribution factor
• Truck growth factors

Traffic Collection

• Agency’s typically collect

• Weigh in Motion (WIM)
• Automatic Vehicle Classification (AVC)
• Vehicle counts
• Percentage of trucks in design lane
• Vehicle class distribution information
• Reasonable assumptions about number of
axles & axle spacing for each truck class

15

Traffic Module Data Analysis
• Loading details
• Tire pressures
• Tire & axle load
• Axle & tire spacing
• Average number of axles
per vehicle classification
7/22/2012 Alemgena Alene, PhD
Climatic and weather condition
7/22/2012
• Traffic factors
• Time distribution factors
• Weekday & Weekend
truck factors
• Directional Distribution
• Lane Distribution
• Lateral Distribution
• Traffic growth function
CENG6302 - Ch1 MU-EiT
16
 7/22/2012

Drainage & Surface Properties

• Pavement shortwave absorptivity
• Ratio of the amount of solar energy absorbed by the
pavement surface
• Typical values
• 0.80-0.90 for weathered
• 0.90-0.98 for new pavement
• Potential for Infiltration
• subdrainage
• Pavement cross slope
• Length of drainage path

Pavement Structure

• Dynamic Modulus, E*
• Stiffness property • Inputs
• Function of • Asphalt mixture
• Temperature properties
• rate of loading • Asphalt binder

• Age • Air voids

• binder stiffness
• aggregate gradation
• binder content
• air voids

17
 7/22/2012

Pavement Structure
• Bedrock

• Presence within 3 m of the pavement surface influences

the structural response of the pavement layers

• Inputs
• Layer thickness (infinite)
• Unit weight
• Poisson’s ratio
• Layer modulus

18