Research Trends in Fischer--Tropsch Catalysis for Coal to Liquids Technology

Abstract

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is in the process of implementing the mechanistic‐empirical pavement design process. Considerable resources have been invested in local material characterization. An initial implementation study sponsored by WisDOT focused on Long‐Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) sites for model verification and local calibration. LTPP sites were used because they had readily available traffic, climate, subgrade, materials, pavement structure and performance data. A more robust local calibration is being undertaken in Wisconsin to fully realize the potential benefits of the mechanistic‐empirical design process. Factors affecting the performance of high‐type, rural JPCP and HMA pavements were investigated during this study using data contained in the WisDOT pavement information files and the Meta Manager traffic database. Key parameters were identified and a targeted filed study of nine hot mix asphalt (HMA) pavement sections and nine jointed concrete pavement (JCP) sections was implemented to provide data necessary for the local calibration of the Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design software for high‐type rural facilities in Wisconsin. Modifications to the default calibration factors relating to HMA rutting and alligator cracking and JCP slab cracking were shown to provide pavement performance predictions which were in line with observed field performance at the 50% and 90% reliability levels. The results presented in this report were generated using the evaluation version 1.0 of the mechanistic empirical pavement design software. Additional calibration efforts using the recently released DARWin‐ME software will be required to extend these results to routine pavement design evaluations. 17.