MECHOD: A Mechanistic Overlay Design Program for Flexible Pavements

by Haiping Zhou, Oregon State Univ, United States,
R. G. Hicks, Oregon State Univ, United States,
Billy Connor, Oregon State Univ, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Microcomputer Applications in Transportation III

Abstract:

This paper presents a fully mechanistic asphalt overlay design procedure for use on microcomputers. The procedure is based on fundamental characteristics of pavement layer properties and uses a linear elastic layer program ELSYM5 to determine strains at critical locations within a pavement structure. Tensile strain at the bottom of the surface layer is used to control fatigue and compressive strain on top of the subgrade is used to control rutting. Failure criteria developed by the Asphalt Institute have been adopted to estimate the pavement life. The design procedure also considers the seasonal effects on pavement life by considering traffic application and pavement strength variations for each season and determining the pavement damage within each season.

Subject Headings: Pavement overlays | Pavement design | Asphalt pavements | Pavement condition | Computer aided design | Seasonal variations | Highway and road design

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