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Heavy Duty Pavement

Design
Dr Wei Liu
Senior Engineer
Fugro-PMS Ltd, New Zealand
Presentation to Prologis China

Presentation Overview

Introduction
Pavement Design Method for Heavy
Duty Pavement
Case Study

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Introduction

Pavement is the layered structure on


which vehicles will travel. It's purpose is
two fold, to provide comfortable and
durable surface for the vehicles and to
reduce stresses to the underlying soils.

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Introduction

There are two types of


pavement frequently in use
throughout the world :
Flexible - pavements with
a bitumen bonded surface.
Rigid - Pavements with a
concrete slab surface which
can be un-reinforced, joint
reinforced or continuously
reinforced.

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Introduction

What is Heavy Duty Pavements?


Pavements subjected to the extremely
heavy wheel loads associated with
freight handling vehicles in industrial
facilities, such as container terminals
and warehouses

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Introduction

Common pavement distresses:


Rutting: a result of heavy, slow moving traffic.
Common in warm areas. Permanent
deformation in the wheel paths .
Fatigue Cracking: With every passing of a
vehicle, pavement layer bends under loading.
Over time, layer will crack; propagation of
cracks upward eventually reaches the surface.
Fatigue cracking occurs as individual cracks
interconnect.

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Introdcution

What is pavement design?


The goal of pavement design is to
determine the number, material
composition and thickness of the
different layers within a pavement
structure required to accommodate a
given loading regime.

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Introduction

Special Issues in heavy duty


pavement design
Slow moving or static traffic load
Ultra high load magnitude
Load Wandering

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Design Principle
Empirical Vs Mechanistic
Material Characterization
Load Characterization
Pavement Response Model
Failure Models

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Design Principle
Minimize critical vertical stress in lower
layers that result in

Rutting

Minimize critical tensile stresses in upper


layers that result in

Fatigue cracking

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Empirical Vs Mechanistic
Empirical Methods are based on the results of
experiments or experience.
Advantage: Simpler approach
Disadvantage: Cannot cope with novel materials or pavement
structures.

It is like driving a car by only looking in the rear


vision mirror, you could only be sure where you had
been, but not where you were going

Geoff Youdale, Chairman, Austroads


Pavement Research Group
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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Empirical Vs Mechanistic

Mechanistic method applies the physics to determine:


The reaction of structures to loading.
Distribution of vehicle loads to the underlying soil layers.
Need fundamental properties of the materials, pavement
thicknesses, load characteristics.
Traffic
Climatic
data
Design &
material
property
parameters

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Pavement response
models ()

Incremental fatigue
damage models

Transfer functions

Performance prediction
models (rutting, %
cracks, etc.)

Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Empirical Vs Mechanistic
Advantages of mechanistic methods:
Design for new load types (such as super single tires).
Design with new materials (such as Soilfix stabilized
material).
Improve reliability of predicting performance.
Using performance related material properties.
Use of environmental effects.

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Material Characterization
Subgrade
Characterized by strength and/or stiffness
California Bearing Ratio (CBR)
Measures shearing resistance
Units: percent
Typical values: 0 to 20
Resilient Modulus (MR)

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Measures stress-strain relationship


Units: MPa
Typical values: 30 to 300 MPa

Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Material Characterization
Subgrade

Effect of Moisture Content

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Material
Characterization

Subbase and
Roadbase

Elastic Modulus E
Poissons Ratio
l = l/l

E =

t = D/D

= l/t

Definitions of E and .
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D/2

Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Material Characterization
Surface Layer

Asphalt Mix
Dynamic Modulus E* (Witczak Equation)

bitumen viscosity
loading frequency
air voids
effective bitumen content

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cum. % retained on 19-mm


sieve
cum. % retained on 9.5-mm
sieve
cum. % retained on 4.76-mm
sieve
% passing the 0.075-mm sieve

Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Material Characterization
Surface Layer

Asphalt Mix

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Material Characterization
Surface Layer

Porland Cement Concrete


Elastic Modulus
Flexural strength

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Load Characterization
Pavement damage

Miners law

Characterization
Spectrum
Expressed as a fraction of a standard load

Pavement life

Expression of how much load repetitions can


be endured before unacceptable
serviceability

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Pavement Response Model


Layered Elastic Analysis
Each layer is homogenous, isotropic, linearly
elastic (E,)
Each layer is weightless
Infinite in x, y, finite in z direction
Uniform pressure applied over a circular
area
Continuity at layer interfaces

Same: vertical & shear stress


vertical and radial displacement
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Tire has a total load P, spread over a circular


area with a radius of a, resulting in a contact
pressure of p.

Pavement
Reactions
h1

Deflection ()
Tensile Strain (t)

Layer 1
HMA
E1
Layer 2
Granular
Base
E2

h2
Compressive Strain (v)

Layer 3
Subgrade Soil
E3

No
horizontal
boundary,
assume
layers
extend
infinitely.

No bottom boundary, assume soil goes on infinitely.

Layered Elastic Model Representation of a Pavement


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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Pavement Response Model


Critical Pavement Responses and Locations
Location
Pavement surface

Response
Deflection (vertical)

Bottom of HMA layer(s)


Top of intermediate layer
(base or subbase)
Top of subgrade

Horizontal tensile strain


Vertical compressive
strain
Vertical compressive
strain

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Failure Models
Fatigue Cracking

allowable number of load repetitions related to tensile


strain at bottom of asphalt layer
AI & Shell design methods -- allowable load
repetitions related to tensile strain and modulus
Nf = f1(t)-f2(E1)-f3

Modulus effect is small (f3 is smaller than f2)

Several models that include only strain :

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Nf = f1(t)-f2

Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Failure Models
Rutting

2 procedures to limit rutting


limit vertical compressive strain on top of subgrade
limit total accumulated permanent deformation

AI and Shell design -- allowable number of load


repetitions to limit rutting related to vertical
compressive strain on top of subgrade
Form (can be used for all materials):
p = a()b(N)1-m

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design


Method

Failure Models
Miners Hypothesis
Provides the ability to sum damage for a
specific distress type
D = n /N 1.0
i
i
where ni = actual number of repetitions
for load i
Ni = allowable number of repetitions
for load i

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Case Study

Design Conditions:
A concrete pavement for a heavy duty
industrial hardstand with a total
repetition of 182,5000 with a 10 ton
axle load for a period of 5 years.
Roadbase is the Soilfix Stabilized
Aggregate

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Case Study

Design Inputs:

Layer

Material

Thickness
(mm)

Modulus
(MPa)

Poissons
Ratio

Porland Cement
Concrete

200

3000

0.15

Soilfix Stabilized
Aggrage

300

6890

0.2

Compact Soil

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0.4

Case Study

Pavement Response Calculations


Critical Stresses in Pavement Structure

Loc#

Layer

Coordinates (mm)

Normal Stress (kPa)

Shear Stress (kPa)


Z

YZ

XZ

XY

200

-1970.76 -2461.34

350.1
9

171.5

200

-2207.53 -2660.59

407

500

35.1

35.28

37.04

171.5

500

36.51

36.62

38.49

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Case Study

Pavement Response Calculations


Critical Strains and Displacements in Pavement
Structure
Displacement
(micrometer)

Coordinates (mm)

Normal MicroStrain

Loc Layer

200

-82.7

-110.91

50.75

15.3

1067.43

171.5

200

-93.47

-119.53

56.86

1081.58

500

42.68

46.84

89.52

-7.59

1059.58

171.5

500

45.1

47.91

93.01

1072.66

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Case Study

Pavement Life Prediction


Fatigue Cracking Model

Rutting Model

log N f 17.61 17.61

MR

Results:

1
N r 1016
v

3.87

Fatigue

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Rutting

Applied Numbers

1825000

1825000

Allowed Numbers

1.54E+07

2.41E+08

0.12

0.01

Damage Factor

Thank you!
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