See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/267752142

Characterization of variability in highway pavement materials and construction

Article  in  International Journal of Pavement Engineering · November 2014

DOI: 10.1080/10298436.2014.943219

CITATIONS READS
2 99

1 author:

Litao Liu
Texas A&M University
13 PUBLICATIONS   41 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Litao Liu on 05 November 2014.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

This article was downloaded by: [Litao Liu]
On: 23 October 2014, At: 11:15
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

International Journal of Pavement Engineering

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gpav20

Characterisation of variability in highway pavement

materials and construction
a
Litao Liu
a
Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843,
USA
Published online: 31 Jul 2014.

To cite this article: Litao Liu (2014): Characterisation of variability in highway pavement materials and construction,
International Journal of Pavement Engineering, DOI: 10.1080/10298436.2014.943219

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2014.943219

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained
in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the
Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and
are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and
should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for
any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of
the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic
reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any
form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://
www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
 International Journal of Pavement Engineering, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2014.943219

Characterisation of variability in highway pavement materials and construction

Litao Liu*
Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
(Received 30 December 2013; accepted 5 July 2014)

Pavement materials and construction (M&C) are inherently variable. Unavoidable inhomogeneous materials, inconsistent
construction methods and equipment, and changing weather conditions during construction, among other factors, result in
M&C variability. Motivated by the need to provide realistic inputs to pavement quality assurance programs, design
procedures and reliability analysis, this paper presents the results of an investigation of variability in key acceptance quality
characteristics (AQCs) for both hot-mix asphalt (HMA) and Portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements using empirical
data (field and laboratory test results from recently completed construction projects). Variability is measured at three levels:
within-lot, within-project and within-state. The variability values found in this study are compared with the variability
values reported about 17 years ago. The results showed that major progress had been made over the past two decades in
reducing variability in pavement M&C.
Keywords: variability; PWL; standard deviation; COV; specifications
Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014

Introduction incentive/disincentive clauses that increase/reduce the

Pavement materials and construction (M&C) are inher-
ently variable. Unavoidable inhomogeneous materials,
inconsistent construction methods and equipment, and
changing weather conditions during construction, among
other factors, result in M&C variability. Measuring
variability in pavement acceptance quality characteristics
(AQCs) is necessary for establishing quality assurance
programs based on empirical data (including establishing
specifications limits and developing acceptance plans).
Additionally, variability measures are key inputs to
pavement design procedures and reliability analysis
(Hughes 1996, Jiang et al. 2003, Newton and Christian
2006). However, pavement designers and researchers often
use ‘typical’ variability values that may not represent
current reality. This paper presents the results of an
investigation of the variability in key AQCs for both hot-
mix asphalt (HMA) and Portland cement concrete (PCC)
pavements using empirical data (field and laboratory test
results from recently completed construction projects).
Variability is measured at three levels: within-lot, within-
project and within-state.
There is a general agreement in the pavement
community that M&C variability adversely affects
pavement performance (i.e. reducing M&C variability
leads to improved pavement performance) (Amirkhanian
et al. 1994, Hughes 1996, Patel and Thompson 1998,
Stubstad 2002). This is particularly true for pavements
where the failure of a relatively small area (say 5 – 10%)
may lead to major rehabilitation. In fact, many highway
agencies use highway construction specifications that have
contractors’ payment partly based on the level of achieved
variability (or uniformity).
The remainder of this paper is organised as follows:
First, a review of the literature on variability in pavement
construction and materials is provided. Second, the results
of variability assessment for multiple construction projects
are discussed and compared to variability values reported
in the literature. Finally, key conclusions and recommen-
dations regarding variability levels in pavement construc-
tion and materials are made available to pavement
practitioners and researchers.
Literature review
Variability can be measured in forms of variance, standard
deviation (SD), range and coefficient of variation (COV).
Of these forms, SD is used the most in the literature and
state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) specifications.
Figure 1 helps explain the relationship between SD and
normal distribution of the data. For example, about 95% of
the data are within the mean plus and minus two SDs, which
is generally used in specifications of pavement construction
(Hughes 1996). COV is computed by dividing the SD by the
mean value, and it is also extensively used as a variability
measure in pavement literature.
The sources of variability in the quality characteristics
of pavements can be divided into the following categories:
. inherent material and construction process
. sampling
. testing

*Email: liulitao11@tamu.edu
q 2014 Taylor & Francis
 2 L. Liu
µ-3 µ-2 µ- µ µ+ µ+ 2 µ+ 3
68.46%
95.46%
99.73%
Figure 1. Relationship between SD and normal curve.
Variability can be related to the reliability of pavement
performance that is estimated in different forms of models.
Research has been extensively applied to quantify
Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014
uncertainty in M&C, as well as evaluate its impact on the
performance of pavements (for example, see Madanat
1993; Swei et al. 2013). The variability measures (e.g. SD)
that are used in pavement specifications and design
procedures represent the total variability that results from
the above sources. Little research has been made to
determine the portion of the total variability that can be
attributed to each one of these sources. Hughes (1996)
synthesised the levels of variability in key AQCs of
highway construction and materials based on data gathered
from several state DOTs. One of his conclusions was that
the variability of some mix properties (e.g. gradation and
asphalt content) had decreased over time while others
appear to be unchanged. Hughes attributed the decrease in
variability to contractor quality control, specifications
requiring a measurement of variability, improved industrial
technology and improved test methods (Hughes 1996).
While there is a general agreement in the pavement
community that M&C variability adversely affects
pavement performance, how variability affect perform-
ance is still largely unknown. There has been no major
attempt to correlate variability in the initial as-constructed
quality characteristics and actual pavement performance
data. While quantifying these effects using actual/
measured data may be ideal, it is very challenging because
pavement construction data and performance data are
usually stored in disparate databases and thus are difficult
to match. Additionally, existing quality assurance data
normally indicate total variability (including testing
variability) and not just M&C variability. A recent
research effort was made to propose a methodology for
considering the variability in initial as-constructed quality
characteristics in predicting long-term pavement perform-
ance, and its application in predicting pavement roughness
especially after thin overlay treatment was demonstrated
to be encouraging (Liu and Gharaibeh in press).
Amirkhanian et al. (1994) developed a simulation
routine to estimate pay factors based on testing and material
variability. They found that the contractor can receive
reduced payment even when there is no material variability
and the process average is within the specification range,
because the magnitude of the variance of the test method
was too large, compared to the specified tolerance range.
Patel and Thompson (1998) tested three techniques that are
used to analyse the effect of variability on system
performance, including Monte Carlo simulation, partial
derivative method and Rosenbleuth point-estimate method.
It was concluded that all three methods can give close
agreements of each other on estimating variances. Their
analysis also showed that the change of SD had a great
impact on the system performance in terms of fatigue life.
For instance, the increasing of the SD of asphalt content
from a target of 0.15– 0.25% decreases fatigue life by about
1%. Tayabji and Wu (2002) offered a variability for
compressive, flexural and split tensile strength on cement
concrete pavements. The coefficients of variability offered
in their study were 15% for compressive strength, split
tensile strength and modulus of elasticity, and 12% for
flexural strength (Tayabji and Wu 2002).
Gharaibeh et al. (2001) used the PaveSpec software to
evaluate the effect of the mean and variability of key AQCs
on pay factor (which is an indicator of quality). PaveSpec
uses Monte Carlo simulation for estimating the effects of
M&C variability on pavement performance. Thus, the
Monte Carlo simulation procedure yields theoretical, but
logical, effects of M&C variability on pavement
performance. The Gharaibeh et al. (2001) study showed
that, according to the PaveSpec simulation approach, the
pay factor always decreases or remains the same (for
conservative designs) as the variability increases. Another
theoretical relationship between variability and perform-
ance (the PAVAN model), however, does not always result
in decreased performance with increased variability
(Gharaibeh et al. 2001).
A recent National Highway Cooperative Research
Program (NCHRP) research effort developed a perform-
ance-related specification for hot-mix asphalt pavement
(Fugro Consultants, Inc. and Arizona State University
(ASU) 2011). This research used historical variance of
variables in its simulation of actual pavement perform-
ance. The variance values have been dated early back to
1975. Lack of practical variability information in key
AQCs for both HMA and PCC pavements makes this
study necessary to look into a number of pavement
construction projects and investigate the variability in
some key AQCs using empirical data.
Data sets
The data sets used in this study were obtained from Florida
DOT (FDOT) and Kansas DOT (KDOT) for construction
 International Journal of Pavement Engineering
projects completed between 2005 and 2009. The KDOT
database included both HMA and PCC data. The databases
included project information, contractor information, mix
design, date of sampling, lot size, lot and sublot index, and
sample test results. The FDOT HMA database consisted of
five AQCs, which are:
. asphalt content
. percent aggregate passing #8 (2.38 mm) sieve
. percent aggregate passing #200 (0.075 mm) sieve
. air voids
. mix density
The KDOT HMA database had two AQCs, air voids and
density, and the PCC database had also two AQCs, 28-day
compressive strength and thickness. From the databases
large projects that contained 20 or more lots were selected
for analysis. In this study, 12 HMA projects were selected
from the FDOT database, and 12 HMA projects and 5 PCC
projects were selected from the KDOT database.
Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014
These sets of data were analysed as follows:
1. determine the variability values, including SD and
COV, in individual lots for each AQC in the data
sets,
2. determine the pooled SD and the COV (during the
process arithmetic mean of each AQC needs to be
employed), and
Figure 2. Sample AQC distributions for selected HMA projects by FDOT.
3
3. characterise the variability values at the levels of
within-lot, within-project and within-state, respect-
ively, and compare the variability values to those
offered in Hughes (1996) to assess change in
variability over the past 14 years.
A preliminary analysis of the data sets found that the
AQC test data within a particular lot generally follows
normal distribution, with the mean close to lot target AQC
value. Figure 2 shows the AQC distributions from several
randomly selected HMA projects by FDOT, and it can be
seen that the AQC test values at project level have a rough
shape of normal distribution.
Characterisation of HMA variability
HMA within-lot variability
The SDs and COVs for each single lot in the selected
HMA projects are calculated. Histograms are drawn to
show the SD and COV distributions for each AQC in the
Florida and Kansas HMA data sets.
Florida HMA
Figure 3 shows the distributions of SD for the five HMA
AQCs in Florida. The variations in the SD for the five
AQCs are quite different. Percent passing #8 sieve (P#8)
has a much larger range than the other four AQCs and
 4 L. Liu
Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014
Figure 3. Histograms for SDs of five HMA AQCs in Florida (sample size ¼ 348).
asphalt content has the smallest range (Figure 3(b)). The
SD distributions appear fairly to follow chi-square
distribution, except for that of percent passing #200
sieve (P#200), which appears rather uniformly distributed.
For P#8, air voids and density, the distributions are skewed
to the left-hand side.
The distributions of COV for each HMA AQC in
Florida are shown in Figure 4. Air voids has the largest
range of COV (as high as 35%), followed by P#200, P#8,
and asphalt content. The range of COV for density is about
2.1%, dramatically lower than the other four. All the five
AQCs conform roughly to normal distribution.
Kansas HMA
Figure 5 shows the SD distributions for HMA AQCs in
Kansas. The distribution for air voids is fairly uniform
(Figure 5(a)), which is noticeably different from the air
voids distribution in Florida HMA (Figure 3(d)). The SD
of density is normal distributed with some sknewness to
the left-hand side.
The air voids data also have a very big range of COV in
Kansas HMA, which is about 27% as shown in Figure 6(a),
comparing to only 1.8% for density in Figure 6(b). The
distributions poorly conform to normal with a large
skewness to the left-hand side.
HMA within-project variability
Pooled SDs and COVs of each AQC were calculated at
project level for the HMA and PCC databases. The
formula used to calculate pooled SDs is as shown in
Equation (1):
 International Journal of Pavement Engineering 5
Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014

Figure 4. Histograms for COV of five HMA AQCs in Florida (sample size ¼ 348).

Figure 5. Histograms for SDs of two AQCs in Kansas HMA (sample size ¼ 407).
 6 L. Liu

Figure 6. Histograms for COV of two AQCs in Kansas HMA (sample size ¼ 407).

vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
uPk   Figure 7 graphically describes the difference in the
u
i¼1 ðni 2 1Þsi
2
sp ¼ t Pk ; ð1Þ within-project COV of the five AQCs. The COVs spread
i¼1 ðni 2 1Þ out well from less than 1% to about 17% across the five
AQCs with some overlapping between asphalt content and
Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014

where sp is the pooled SD in a project, ni is the sample size
in the ith lot, si is the SD in the ith lot and k is the number
of lots in that project.
Within-project arithmetic mean values for each AQC
were computed. The within-project COV values were
determined by dividing the pooled SD by the arithmetic
mean value.
Florida HMA
Table 1 presents the within-project SDs and COVs for
HMA AQCs in Florida. The range of within-project SD is
about 0.1 – 0.2% for asphalt content, 0.2 –0.5% for P#200,
0.4 –0.7% for air voids, 0.4 – 0.9% for density, and 1.3 –
2.3% for P#8. The range of within-project COVs is 0 –1%
for density, 2– 5% for asphalt content and P#8, 4 –9% for
P#200, and 10– 15% for air voids.
P#8. It can be seen that, among the studied AQCs, density
has the lowest and air voids has the highest within-project
COV.
Kansas HMA
For KDOT’s HMA AQCs, the within-project SD of air
voids ranges from 0.2% to 1%, relatively smaller than the
range of density, which is from 0.5% to 1.3% (Table 2).
Similar to the COV trend found in FDOT’s data set,
density has lower within-project COV than air voids
(Figure 8).
HMA within-state variability
The arithmetic average, SD and sample size in each
project are used to compute the pooled within-state SDs

Table 1. Within-project variability for Florida HMA.

Asphalt content P#8 P#200 Air voids Density

Sample SD Mean COV SD Mean COV SD Mean COV SD Mean COV SD Mean COV
Project size (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
1 100 0.18 5.0 3.5 1.78 47.6 3.7 0.36 5.1 7.1 0.50 3.7 13.6 0.87 92.5 0.9
2 119 0.17 5.8 3.0 1.70 42.9 4.0 0.31 4.9 6.3 0.61 3.9 15.6 0.79 92.3 0.9
3 91 0.19 5.4 3.5 1.57 43.4 3.6 0.21 3.8 5.6 0.65a 3.9 16.7b 0.57 93.1 0.6
4 126 0.14 5.2 2.8 1.78 48.7 3.7 0.44a 5.8 7.7 0.44 3.9 11.2 0.90a 92.1 1.0b
5 100 0.20a 4.9 4.2b 1.42 43.6 3.2 0.29 4.8 6.0 0.54 3.6 15.1 0.61 92.2 0.7
6 103 0.15 5.8 2.6 1.30 40.3 3.2 0.19 4.8 4.0 0.58 3.9 15.0 0.62 93.7 0.7
7 126 0.17 5.1 3.2 1.67 41.2 4.1 0.26 3.8 6.8 0.47 3.4 13.8 0.82 91.9 0.9
8 122 0.20a 5.2 3.9 2.36a 44.1 5.4b 0.40 4.7 8.6b 0.51 4.1 12.3 0.68 92.9 0.7
9 86 0.19 6.1 3.0 1.52 53.3 2.9 0.38 5.4 7.0 0.49 3.5 13.8 0.69 93.6 0.7
10 91 0.12 5.1 2.3 1.33 45.1 3.0 0.25 5.2 4.8 0.35 3.5 10.2 0.42 92.9 0.5
11 168 0.14 4.8 3.0 1.36 36.6 3.7 0.26 4.9 5.2 0.58 3.8 15.2 0.75 93.8 0.8
12 148 0.17 6.7 2.5 1.70 50.3 3.4 0.33 4.2 7.8 0.51 3.6 14.1 0.87 93.0 0.9
a
The largest within-project SD for that AQC in column.
b
The largest within-project COV for that AQC in column.
 International Journal of Pavement Engineering 7

50%
Density
Asphalt Content
40%
P#8
P#200
% of Projects

30% Air Voids

20%

10%

0%
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13 14 15 16
Coefficient of Variation, %

Figure 7. Percents of project over COVs in Florida HMA.

and COVs for FDOT’s and KDOT’s data sets. The results Kansas HMA
Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014

are presented in Table 3, which also includes the typical
SDs and COVs from the NCHRP Synthesis 232 (Hughes
1996).
Florida HMA
As shown in Table 3, the within-state SDs are comparable
to the variability values obtained about 14 years ago. The
SDs of P#8 and P#200 are smaller than the lower ends of the
ranges for the two AQCs in the NCHRP Synthesis 232.
The within-state SDs of asphalt content and air voids are
just on the brink of the reported ranges 14 years ago. Also,
the SD of P#8 is favourably comparable to the range
provided in a study by Villiers et al. (2003), which was
from 0.7% to 2.32%.
Regarding COV, air voids has the largest within-state
value at 14%, significantly higher than the only 0.8% of
density which is the lowest in the five AQCs.
The within-state SDs of air voids and density are 0.49%
and 0.82%, respectively, which are fairly close to the
Florida values. The SD for air voids is below the lower end
of the reported range in NCHRP Synthesis 232.
The COVs for air voids and density are 11.7% and
0.9%, respectively, also very close to the Florida values.
Characterisation of PCC variability
PCC within-lot variability
The within-lot SD of 28-day compressive strength in
Kansas PCC has a range of about 30 –1400 psi, with 95%
of the data ranging between 100 and 800 (Figure 9(a)). The
within-lot SD of thickness has a range of 0– 1.2 in., with
95% of the data ranging between 0.05 and 0.55 (Figure 9
(b)). The distribution of the thickness within-lot SD
conforms well to a normal curve.

Table 2. Within-project variability for Kansas HMA.

Air voids Density

Project Sample size SD (%) Mean (%) COV (%) SD (%) Mean (%) COV (%)
1 274 0.2 4.3 4.7 0.63 94.3 0.7
2 96 0.46 4.1 11.1 0.39 93.3 0.4
3 191 0.33 4.3 7.7 1.17 93.4 1.3
4 103 0.27 4.2 6.5 0.5 93.1 0.5
5 117 0.38 4.3 8.9 0.97 93.1 1.0
6 99 0.32 4.1 7.8 1.27a 93.7 1.4b
7 205 0.93a 4.1 22.8b 0.69 93.2 0.7
8 143 0.52 4.3 12.2 0.48 93.3 0.5
9 90 0.45 4.2 10.6 0.81 92.7 0.9
10 90 0.51 4.1 12.3 0.75 93.5 0.8
11 146 0.4 4.2 9.6 1.03 93.4 1.1
12 92 0.59 4.4 13.4 0.58 91.8 0.6
a
The largest within-project SD for the AQC in column.
b
The largest within-project COV for the AQC in column.
 8 L. Liu

70%

60% Density

50% Air Voids

% of Projects 40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.4 11 12 13 14 23
Coefficient of Variation, %

Figure 8. Percents of project over COVs in Kansas HMA.

The within-lot COV of 28-day compressive strength PCC within-state variability

Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014

has a range of about 0 –28%, comparing to a range of
about 0 –10% for thickness. The two distributions are
shown in Figure 10(a),(b).
PCC within-project variability
The pooled within-project SD ranges between 400 and
630 psi for 28-day compressive strength and ranges
between 0.2 and 0.4 in. for thickness in Kansas PCC, as
shown in Table 4. The COV of 28-day compressive
strength ranges between 7% and 12%, much larger than
the COV of thickness that ranges between 1.8% and 3.5%.
As Table 5 shows, the pooled within-state SD is 498 psi for
28-day compressive strength, and 0.29 in. for thickness in
Kansas PCC. Comparing the 1996 variability values
(Hughes 1996), the SD of 28-day compressive strength is
within the reported range but fairly close the lower end; the
SD of thickness is smaller than the lower end of the range
for thickness SD reported by Hughes (1996).
The within-state COV of 28-day compressive strength
is 8.9%, which is much higher than the 2.5% of thickness.
The COV of 28-day compressive strength is just slightly
larger than the lower end of the range of 8.5– 21.8%

Table 3. Within-state HMA SDs and COVs.

Asphalt content P#8 P#200 Air voids Density

Sample
State size SD (%) COV (%) SD (%) COV (%) SD (%) COV (%) SD (%) COV (%) SD (%) COV (%)
Florida 1380 0.17 3.1 1.66 3.7 0.32 6.7 0.53 14.0 0.74 0.8
Kansas 1646 – – – – – – 0.49 11.7 0.82 0.9
NCHRP (1996) – 0.15 –0.44 – 1.8– 9.6 – 0.5 – 1.5 – 0.5 – 1.9 – – –

Figure 9. Histograms for SDs of two AQCs in Kansas PCC (sample size ¼ 235).
 International Journal of Pavement Engineering 9

Figure 10. Histograms of COV of two AQCs in Kansas PCC (sample size ¼ 235).

Table 4. Within-project PCC variability.

28-day comp. strength Thickness

Project Sample size SD (psi) Mean (psi) COV (%) SD (in.) Mean (in.) COV (%)
Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014

a b a
1 45 627 5314.5 11.8 0.41 11.804 3.5b
2 245 573 5704.9 10.0 0.31 10.745 2.9
3 207 460 5616.1 8.2 0.23 12.863 1.8
4 134 402 5585.6 7.2 0.27 12.898 2.1
5 127 439 5546.6 7.9 0.30 10.631 2.8
a
The largest within-project SD for the AQC in column.
b
The largest within-project COV for the AQC in column.

Table 5. Within-state PCC SD and COV.

28-day comp. strength Thickness

State Sample size SD (psi) COV (%) SD (in.) COV (%)
Kansas 758 498 8.9 0.29 2.5
NCHRP (1996) 347– 1180a 8.5– 21.8a 0.31 – 0.51a 3.4– 5.4a
a
Values refer to Kansas data only.

reported by Hughes (1996). The COV of thickness is lower
than the 1996 reported range.
Summary and conclusions
The variability, in terms of SD and COV, in contractor-
performed test results was evaluated and characterised at
the within-lot, within-project and within-state levels for
both HMA and PCC pavements. Within-project and
within-state COVs are computed using the pooled SD and
arithmetic mean of each AQC in a project.
The derived SDs and COVs are compared across
different AQCs within the same pavement type and also
compared to past results reported in the 1996 NCHRP
Synthesis 232 (Hughes 1996). Considering the within-
state variability, major progress has been made over the
past 17 years in reducing SDs and COVs in AQCs for both
HMA and PCC pavements. This progress can possibly be
contributed to advancements in pavement construction
technologies, more rigorous quality control procedures
and other related factors.
The empirical results are of practical value in that they
provide insights concerning variability values that can be
used in establishing agency’s pavement quality acceptance
criteria, pavement design procedures and reliability
analysis. But as these variability values (e.g. SDs and
COVs) are derived from Florida and Kansas data only, they
should be used cautiously for pavements in other locations.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for the FHWA for sponsoring the research
and also for the Florida and Kansas Departments of
Transportation for providing the data used in this research.
References
Amirkhanian, S.N., Burati, J.L., and Mirchandani, H.C., 1994.
Effect of testing variability on contractor payment for asphalt
 10
pavements. Journal of Construction Engineering and
Management, 120 (3), 579– 592.
Fugro Consultants, Inc. and Arizona State University (ASU),
2011. A performance-related specification for hot-mix
asphalt. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board
of the National Academies NCHRP Report 704.
Gharaibeh, N.G., et al., 2001. Effect of variability and central
tendency in performance-related specifications for concrete
pavement. In: Proceedings, 7th international conference on
concrete pavements. Vol. 1, Orlando, FL, 513–524.
Hughes, C.S., 1996. Variability in highway pavement construc-
tion. National Cooperative Highway Research Program
(NCHRP) Synthesis 232. Washington, DC: Transportation
Research Board, National Research Council.
Jiang, Y., et al., 2003. Estimation of pavement layer thickness
variability for reliability-based design. Transportation
Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research
Board, 1849, 156– 165.
Liu, L. and Gharaibeh, N., in press. A Bayesian model for
predicting the performance of pavements treated with thin
HMA overlays. Transportation Research Record: Journal of
the Transportation Research Board.
Madanat, S., 1993. Optimal infrastructure management decisions
Downloaded by [Litao Liu] at 11:15 23 October 2014
under uncertainty. Transportation Research Part C: Emer-
ging Technologies, 1 (1), 77 – 88.
View publication stats
L. Liu
Newton, L.A. and Christian, J., 2006. Impact of quality on
building costs. Journal of Infrastructure Systems, 12 (4),
199– 206.
Patel, A. and Thompson, M., 1998. Consideration and
characterization of pavement construction variability.
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transpor-
tation Research Board, 1632, 40 – 50.
Stubstad, R.N., 2002. LTPP data analysis: variations in
pavement design inputs. Washington, DC. National Coop-
erative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project No.
20-50(5) Transportation Research Board.
Swei, O., Gregory, J., and Kirchain, R., 2013. Probabilistic
characterization of uncertain inputs in the life-cycle cost
analysis of pavements. Transportation Research Record:
Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2366, 71 – 77.
Tayabji, S.D. and Wu, C.L., 2002. Variability of concrete
materials data in long-term pavement performance program.
Transportation Research Record: Journal of Transportation
Research Board, 1813, 181– 190.
Villiers, C., et al., 2003. Evaluation of percent-within-limits
construction specification parameters. International Journal
of Pavement Engineering, 4 (4), 221– 228.