Lecture 14

REMAINING SERVICE
LIFE
 Instructional Objectives


Concept of remaining service life

How remaining life is calculated

How remaining service life is used and its importance
 Concept of remaining service life

Remaining service life (RSL) is the number of years that a
pavement will be functionally and structurally in an acceptable
condition with only routine maintenance.

This combines severity and extent of different distresses and
rates of deterioration.

RSL also requires development of a performance model and
establishment of a threshold value for each distress
measurement.

Based on the threshold value, current distress level, and
deterioration model, time for each distress to reach the threshold
value can be computed.
 Development of Condition indices:

Pavement condition is a generic phrase to describe the ability of a
pavement to sustain a certain level of serviceability under given
traffic loadings.

The rating method is based upon the visual inspection of
pavement distress. The rating method provides a procedure for
uniformly identifying and describing, in terms of severity and
extent, pavement distress.

It is usually represented by various types of condition indices
such as Present Serviceability Index (PSI), Present Serviceability
Rating (PSR), Pavement Condition Index (PCI), Pavement
Condition Rating (PCR), Ride Number (RN), Profile Index (PI),
and International Roughness Index (IRI).
 Design and remaining service life

In order to evaluate meaningful improvement, a threshold value
must be defined.

The threshold value can be established by some or all of the
following criteria:
a. The value at which an MR & R treatment is needed to remove
unacceptable or poor condition.
b. The value at which routine maintenance is required to maintain
pavement serviceability.
c. The value at which an MR & R treatment will cost the users less
for rehabilitation than it would cost them if no rehabilitation is
undertaken.
Cont..

By establishing this threshold value, the RSL of a pavement section
is the estimated in length of time, from any given point of time
(usually the last surveying date or current date), required to reach
the threshold value.

The RSL in terms of distress index and PSR are shown in next
slide.

If the current condition is already beyond the threshold value, the
RSL is zero. However a negative RSL (-k) is sometimes used to
indicate that the pavement reached the threshold value k years ago.
Cont..

Figure shows Remaining and design service life

Cont..

Figure shows Remaining and design service life

Cont..

The distribution of distress index is shown in figure below.

If index is 50 or more indicates the need of routine maintenance.

The current maintenance workload is 12% of the network.
Cont..

The distribution is converted to RSL by pavement performance
curves. The figure shows condition at 1 year later.

If pavements with RSL of 2 years or less (category I) are defined
in poor condition, then 19% of the network is currently in poor
condition.
Cont..

Figure shows condition 25 years later.

 determine RSL for each pavement section

RSL is calculated from the condition of the asset during that
year and the projected number of years until rehabilitation is
required.

Once RSL is estimated for each pavement section in the
network, the sections are grouped into different categories.

It requires development of a performance model and
establishment of a threshold value for each distress type.

Based on these threshold values, the current distress level and
deterioration model for each particular distress, and time for
each distress to reach the threshold value, can be computed.
Cont..


The shortest of these time periods is the RSL of the
pavement section.

To calculate RSL for a pavement section, the agency
needs its current condition, a definition of serviceable
condition, and a mechanism to predict deterioration of the
pavement condition.
Cont..

Figure shows the Calculation of RSL for an Individual Condition
Index .
 Develop Performance Curve Derived from
survival curves:

Changes in the pavement age can be described by using
survival curves.

Survival curves give the percentage of pavement sections that
last a certain number of years before a terminal event.

Survival curves can be constructed for an individual pavement
or a pavement population.

An individual survival curve plots the probability that an
individual pavement section will remain in service as a
function of age.

A population survival curve plots the fraction of pavement
population that remains in service as a function of age.
Cont..


Derived performance curves were drawn between pavement
age and PCR for different survival probabilities for different
PCR values of 95, 90, 85, 80, 75, 70, 65, and 60.

The height of the curve begins at one and declines as age
and time increase.

The slope of the curve depends on the rate of pavement
failures, with steeper decreases in periods of higher rate of
pavement failures.
Cont..

Figure shows Survival Probability Vs Pavement Age
 How Remaining Service Life is calculated

Generally, a RSL distribution of a road network is constructed to
analyze the impact of M&R (Maintenance & Rehabilitation of
pavement) actions on the future condition, to optimize and
prioritize the M&R actions, to determine life-cycle cost, and to
obtain the feedback on current M&R strategies.

A uniform RSL distribution is an indication of an ideal M&R
policy. RSL is defined as the amount of time in years from a
specified time (usually the latest survey year) to the year when
the pavement reaches a threshold or requires the next treatment.

Since the pavements will be at different ages at the latest
condition survey year, the RSL changes at each age.
Cont..

According to Winfrey (1967) and Reilly (1998), the RSL is
determined as the ratio of area under the complete survival curve
to the right of an age to survival probability at that age.

For example, the remaining service life of a pavement that is
currently x years old can be calculated as:
Cont..

Example: Calculate the Remaining Service Life for a
pavement network to reach PCR 60 at the age of 6 years?

Ref. figure to find RSL at 6 years
Cont..

Remaining Service Life for a pavement network to reach PCR
60 at the age of 6 years can be established as:


Area under Survival Curve to the right of 6 years is 10.22
units and 0.99 is the corresponding survival probability.

Hence RSL for pavement network to reach PCR 60 at the age
of 6 years is 10.22/0.99 i.e. 10.35 years.
 Practical Considerations

RSL reliability is function of reliability of condition survey
and performance curves

Future RSL distributions are network level not project level

Future Trends


Sophisticated PMS “carries along” RSL calculations with
life-cycle cost

RSL distribution a result of PMS analysis