APPLICATION OF EMPIRICAL AND MECHANISTIC-EMPIRICAL PAVEMENT DESIGN PROCEDURES TO Mn/ROAD CONCRETE PAVEMENT TEST SECTIONS

Abstract

Current pavement design procedures are based principally on empirical approaches. The introduction of new materials and the significant increase in traffic volumes have brought uncertainty to their prediction of pavement behavior. The current trend toward developing more mechanistic-empirical type pavement design methods led Minnesota to develop the Minnesota Road Research Project (Mn/ROAD). The project consists of 40 heavily instrumented test sections, 14 of which are jointed plain concrete (JPC) designs. The predicted lives of the Mn/ROAD mainline concrete test sections were determined using design and as-built data applied to three currently accepted concrete pavement design methods: Minnesota Department of Transportation's (Mn/DOT) rigid pavement design guidelines, AASHTO Guide for Design of Pavement Structures 1993, and the PCA Thickness Design for Concrete Highway and Street Pavements (1984). The analysis began with determination of the applicable as-built parameter values for each respective design method. Application of the as-built parameters into the three methods resulted in widely varied predictions of pavement life. For the 1993 AASHTO design method, reliability levels of 50% and 95% were applied for comparison. An experimental procedure for converting PCA method fatigue and erosion results to AASHTO type CESALs demonstrated unsuitability. Validation of the predictions presented will occur as the test cells reach their terminal serviceability.