Optimal Pavement Design and Rehabilitation Planning Using a Mechanistic-Empirical Approach

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-2015

Publisher

Elsevier

Source Publication

EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics

Source ISSN

2192-4376

Original Item ID

DOI: 10.1007/s13676-014-0072-2

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a pavement design and rehabilitation optimization decision-making framework based on Mechanistic-Empirical (ME) roughness transfer models. The AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design (the software of Pavement ME Design) is used to estimate pavement deterioration based on the combined effects of permanent deformation, fatigue, and thermal cracking. The optimization problem is first formulated into a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model to address the predominant trade-off between agency and user costs. To deal with the complexity associated with the pavement roughness transfer functions in the software and to use the roughness values as input to the optimization framework, a dynamic programming subroutine is developed for determining the optimal rehabilitation timing and asphalt concrete design thickness. An application of the proposed model is demonstrated in a case study. Managerial insights from a series of sensitivity analyses on different unit user cost values and model comparisons are presented.

Comments

EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics, Vol. 4, No. 1 (March 2015): 57-73. DOI.

Jaime A. Hernandez was affiliated with University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign at the time of publication.

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS