Project

Highway Pavement Condition Deterioration Modeling Considering Maintenance History

Team

Dr. Waheed Uddin, PI, The University of Mississippi
Dr. Hakan Yasarer, Co-PI, The University of Mississippi

Description

Highway infrastructure network assets for passenger mobility and freight transport are imperative to support the economy and society. The pavement part of a highway constitutes about 80 percent of the total construction and lifetime maintenance costs. The service life phase is adversely affected by traffic volume uncertainty, climate and seasonal changes in the environment, and the interaction effects of traffic, materials, and climate. Consequently, the long-term durability and life extension of pavement assets can be achieved only using timely maintenance and rehabilitation as a part of highway asset management system (Figures 1 and 2). The service life phase requires reliable pavement condition deterioration progression and performance models to predict time of major maintenance at maximum thresholds of longitudinal roughness and distresses. About 93 percent of 4.1 million miles (6.56 million km) paved highways and roads consists of asphalt-surfaced pavements, which is the focus of Year 1 research. The current national structural design method relates distresses to pavement performance prediction and lacks the maintenance intervention effect. The primary objective is to develop enhanced mechanistic-empirical performance models for asphalt highway pavement condition deterioration progression considering major maintenance and rehabilitation history, climate regions, and intervention effects of natural hazards and extreme weather and climate change impacts. This innovative modeling methodology will be implemented using the historical Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) database from all climatic regions in the United States. Additionally, pavement structural response databases, generated by finite element simulations based on statistical sampling design and design traffic load, will be used to develop equations for mechanistic analysis. These will be key research products. The developed models will be verified using reserved LTPP sections, validated using pavement condition data of selected non-LTPP highway sections in Mississippi and other climatic region states, and implemented in mechanistic-empirical design methods and pilot application for pavement asset management.

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