Insert thePavement

Long-Life title of your

presentation here
(ELLPAG)
Presented by Name Here
Job Title - Date
How do we achieve long life pavements?
By simply extending design charts?

600

500
Future requirement

Thickness 400 Current traffic limit

of bound Experimental pavements
layer (mm) 300

Extrapolation
200

100

0
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 100
Cumulative traffic (msa) 0
No – by exploring alternatives

 Therefore an extensive targeted investigation of how

such pavements deteriorate was carried out in the UK.

 This revealed that :

 There is much evidence for
- Top down cracking only
- Deformation only in surfacing

 If the pavement is sufficiently strong and well built

LONG-LIFE FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT
CONSTRUCTION

SURFACE COURSE
BINDER COURSE ASPHALT } Deterioration is confined to the
surface layers
(200 - 400 mm)
ROADBASE
The base layer and foundation
has sufficient strength to resist
SUB-BASE
traffic induced deterioration.

CAPPING FOUNDATION

SUBGRADE
 Rutting

DETERIORATION MECHANISMS

Cracking
Why do we need long-life
pavements?

Congestion
Sustainability
Economics
CORE THROUGH
CRACK
Longitudinal
crack in
M1
NON-STRUCTURAL
RUTTING
 Strong well-built fully flexible pavements do not
structurally deteriorate - they only have surface
deterioration

 Therefore design charts can be…..

Some questions?

 This only covers fully flexible constructions – what about

other pavements types?
 This covers only UK experience – what about other
countries in Europe and beyond?
 Has this any relevance to European Highway Managers?

To try and answer this CEDR supported the

formation of ELLPAG by FEHRL in 2000
 CEDR

ELLPAG
european
long-life
pavement
group
ELLPAG

is a Working
Group ( Forum of European National
Highway Research Laboratories )

with support from CEDR

(Conference of European Directors of Roads)
 Core Membership
12 countries
Austria Belgium
Czech Republic (Phase 3 only)
Denmark (Phases 1 & 2 only)
France Greece
Hungary The Netherlands
Poland Spain (Phase
DRI
3 only)
Switzerland DWW United Kingdom
TRL
RBI
Plus BRRC
LCPC ISTU
10 European associate membersKTI

5 Worldwide affiliate members

LAVOC
IMI

NTUA
Four main aims of ELLPAG

With respect to long-life pavements:

• to determine best designs

• to determine economic benefits
• to understand deterioration mechanisms
• to encourage their use

With a particular emphasis on the

needs of the structural support layers
Plan for the flow of the work of ELLPAG

Phase 1:
Review of Fully
Flexible LLPs

Identify Knowledge Gaps

TIME

Phase 2:
Review of Semi-
Rigid LLPs

Research
Phase 3:
Review of Rigid
LLPs

Phase 4:
Production of Best
Practice Guide
Objective - Short Term
(Phase 1)

 A State-of-the-art Review of current European knowledge

on the design and maintenance of fully flexible pavements,
with emphasis on the structural layers
 CONTENTS
Definition
Design and construction
FEHRL REPORT 2004/01
Assessment
ELLPAG PHASE 1
Maintenance
A Guide to the use of Long-Life
Economic analysis
Fully-Flexible Pavements
Research needs
Recommendations

Published by FEHRL in 2004

www.fehrl.org
 Phase 2
A guide to the use of
Long-Life Semi-Rigid
Pavements

Published by FEHRL
July 2009
 Phase 3
A guide to the use of Long-Life Rigid Pavements

Draft form completed

Expected publication shortly
What are long-life pavements?

 Strong well-built pavements that do not structurally

deteriorate - they only have surface deterioration

- “A well designed and well constructed pavement

where the structural elements last indefinitely
provided that the designed maximum individual
load and environmental conditions are not
exceeded and that appropriate and timely surface
maintenance is carried out.”
Economic benefits

For Flexible and Semi-rigid design compared

- Traditional pavement design
Vs
- Long-life designs

For Rigid pavements compared

- Good construction
- Vs
- Poor construction

However cannot generalise results

every design needs to be evaluated
 Slab thickness (cm)
Sw

0
5
10
15
20
25
30
i tz
er 35
la
n d

22
Be
lg
Cz iu
e m
ch

23
Re
pu
b lic

Fr 25
an
ce
26

G
er
m
an
y
26

Hu
n ga
ry
26

Po
la
n d
27
Concrete design thicknesses for URC

Au
s tr i
Ne a
28

t he
rla
nd
s
29

Sp
a in
29

UK
31
Are they economic solutions?
Considering the management of a
heavily trafficked core network of
10,000 km over a 10 year period
the use of long-life designs can give
a total saving of well over

€300M
Long life = 2000 years?