FLEXIBLE PAVEMENTS STRUCTURAL EVALUATION BASED ON DEFLECTION

BASIN PARAMETERS

Flaviane Melo Lopes *

Master of Civil Engineering, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brasil,
flavianeml@globo.com

Rita Moura Fortes

Professor of Civil Engineering, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, So Paulo, Brasil

Carlos Yukio Suzuki

Professor of Civil Engineering, Universidade de So Paulo, So Paulo, Brasil

ABSTRACT: In Brazil it is significant the increase in the use of an equipment type FWD for deflection analysis
and structural characterization of existing pavements. This characterization is still held only through a maximum
deflection measure. However, the isolated association of maximum deflection (D0) may not be conclusive
enough to diagnose the structural condition of the pavement. Thus, the current study aims, through parametric
study, to propose a simplified structural assessment methodology of asphalt pavement condition with granular
base using measurements of deflection basin. Through the known correlations simplified models will be
proposed to estimate the remaining life of a pavement according to deflection parameters. The proposed
methodology has proved to be promising. The use of the information on deflection basin can help out in
troubleshooting pavement rehabilitation, avoiding premature failures in diagnosing faults.

KEY WORDS: structural evaluation, deflection basin parameters, Falling Weight Deflectometer, Elsym-5
computer program, flexible pavements, remaining pavement life

1. INTRODUCTION

Since the mid 1980s, in Brazil, the Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) is used as a well-established non-
destructive testing device for evaluating the structural capacity of pavements in service for rehabilitation designs.
The growth of the use of FWD it can be attributed to the advantages of this equipment. These advantages are the
speed and security of execution in the field work, reliability of results as the repeatability and the ability to
accurately obtain the whole shape of deflection basin. The advantages showed in relation to the traditional
Benkelman Beam, which is an easy operated device and its cost less than FWD device. The Benkelman Beam is
a device that works in a slow time and demands a hard field work.

Currently, the Brazilian restoration standards are used as reference measurements with equipment Benkelman
Beam, these standards are known in Brazilian technical group of pavement.

In order to increase the interpretation of the deflection basin based on a parametric study ever conducted, this
work propose a methodology for assessing the structural condition of asphalt pavements using deflection basin
parameters.

The parameters of curvature of the basin deflection used in this study are internationally known and readily
obtained by surveying deflection measurements with the equipment FWD. These deflection basin parameters
(DBP) are used to develop correlations between them and the critical strain generated in the pavement structure
when requested. The elastic and geometric characteristics of the layers are used in correlations to verify its
representation in the form of the basin and the values of DBP. Using the correlations, we intend to establish a
methodology that can provide simplified models to estimate the remaining life of a pavement in operation
through the deflection parameters.

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The Brazilian methods for calculating the pavement overlay, as DNER-PRO-11/79 [2] and DNER-PRO-269/94
[3], recommend the determination of deflection basin through deflection surveys, however only the DNER-PRO-
269/94 [3] method makes use of additional measures to calculate the radius of curvature (R).

The importance of the knowledge of the basin deformation are discussed in Moreira [9] in accordance with
Figure 1, where two deflections curvature basin represent the deformed obtained at two different places of the
surface on the same type of pavement, caused by application of load wheel.

APPLIED LOAD

D0
DEFLECTION BASIN - A
Dr DEFLECTION BASIN - B

D0 = MAXIMUM DEFLECTION

Dr = DEFLECTION DIFFERENCE AT OFFSET r

Figure 1. Maximum Deflection (D0) for two different basins deformation (adapted from [4])

The maximum deflection (D0) values in both cases (A and B) of figure 1 are the same, so this values indicates a
same structural capacity. However, it is known when analyze the deflection basin the structural conditions are
different, even if expressed the maximum deflection (D0).

In the literature, it can be seen that many researchers tried to develop methods for pavement analyzes using
different devices and curvature parameters to obtain the values of deflection.

2. PREDICTION OF PAVEMENT REMAINING LIFE

In the technical literature there are some works of the deflection basin parameters that have deflections
prediction model as a function of the traffic number of loading repetitions, as shown by Maree and Jooste [8] and
Horak [5] on Figure 2, where different levels of traffic and different parameters are estimated the pavement
remaining life with granular, asphalt or cemented bases.

Kilareski et al. [6] reported that many highway departments estimate the remaining life of the pavement by using
only the measurements of deflections. Thus, the authors attempted to relate the maximum tensile strength with
the parameters of curvature and to make more practical. They produced the graph showed in Figure 3, which
introduced the concept of the structural number (SN) related to remaining life and deflection basin parameters.

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 Maximum
Deflection
(Dm x)

SCI

BDI

BCI

Figure 2. Correlation between DBP and prediction of the traffic number of loading repetition (adapted from [8])

Figure 3. Remaining pavement life based on SCI and SN [6]

3. PARAMETRIC STUDY

The purpose of the parametric study ever conducted in Lopes [7] was to determine relationships between
deflection basin parameters and indicators that reflect the structural capacity of pavements, to assist in the
evaluation of the estimated remaining useful life of the pavement from surveys conducted with FWD device.

To calculate the stresses, strains and displacements in the simulated structures of pavement, made use of the
ELSYM-5 - Elastic Layered System computer program. This program admits up to five layers, including the

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subgrade, and up to ten loads of wheel contact area with tire-pavement loop. ELSYM-5 program is a well-known
and widely used because of its low processing time and ease of use.

The structures of flexible asphalt pavement simulated consist of three layers: surface, base and subgrade. The
first layer is composed of asphalt concrete (AC) the base composed of granular material overlying the subgrade
with resilient modulus ranging from 250 to 1.500 kgf/cm. The summary characteristics of the layers are shown
in Table 1.

Table 1. Characteristics of pavement structures

Thickness Modulus Poisson's
Layer
(cm) (kgf/cm) Ratio

HAC 3 - 5 - 10 - 15 - 20 - 30 - 45 - 60 7.500 - 15.000 - 22.500 - 30.000 - 37.500 - 45.000 0,35

HBASE 15 - 30 - 45 - 60 750 - 1.500 - 2.250 - 3.000 - 3.750 - 4.500 0,40
HSG - 250 - 500 - 750 - 1.000 - 1.250 - 1.500 0,45

According to the correlation equations of Lopes [7], the most representative DBP relative to structural indicators
are SCI, BDI and BCI, that forming a set of measurements to provide adequate information representing all
layers of the pavement from the subgrade to the surface. Besides the selection of the parameters SCI, BDI and
BCI, for subsequent studies, were also analyzed D0 and R, parameters already established in the transportation
standards. Table 2 shows the formulas of DBP and units mentioned above.

Table 2. Deflection basin parameters used in parametric study

Deflection Parameter Formula Unit
D0 - Maximum Deflection - D0 [10-2 mm]
6250
R - Radius of Curvature R= R [m]
2*(D0-D25)
SCI - Surface Curvature Index SCI = D0 - D30 SCI [10-2 mm]
BDI - Base Damage Index BDI = D30 - D60 BDI [10-2 mm]
BCI - Base Curvature Index BCI = D60 - D90 BCI [10-2 mm]
OBS: D0 , D25 , D30 , D60 , D90 [10-2 mm]
Deflection distance from point of maximum deflection.

4. PERFORMANCE OF PREDICTION MODELS

Depending on performance, models can be found to make structural evaluation of pavements, estimating its
remaining useful life, from the values of DBP in a direct and relatively simple form.

With the aim of determining deflection parameters models based on traffic to flexible pavements, fatigue models
recommended in the literature were used, in which the number N correlate with the maximum deflection (D0),
the horizontal tensile strain at bottom of asphalt (t) and the vertical compressive deformation at top of subgrade
(v).

It is noteworthy for the adoption of a fatigue mathematical equation that evaluates the quality and performance
of a pavement, it is necessary to understand how and under what conditions this equation was determined. as
field trials or laboratory, magnitude, frequency and duration of cyclic loading, etc.

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For each parameter deflection were prepared correlations between t, v alone or together, and then selecting the
final one to produce better representation.

The proposed method allows obtaining of the abacus shown in Figure 4, which shows the fatigue models
proposed to estimate the remaining life of the pavement and assist the structural evaluation of flexible pavements
as a function of D0, R, SCI, BDI and BCI and models fatigue already consolidated in Brazil.

For the development of the abacus of Figure 4 were used separately or together with the model of Asphalt
Institute with t and the model of the Shell (50% reliability) with v.

REMAINING PAVEMENT LIFE

DEFLEFECTION VALUES [10-2 mm] AND RAIUS OF CURVATURE [m]

1.000

PRO 11/79 R

100
PRO 269/94

D0
BCI BDI SCI
10

1
1,00E+05 1,00E+06 1,00E+07 1,00E+08

NUMBER N

PRO 11/79 PRO 269/94 Do R SCI BDI BCI

Figure 4. Abacus fatigue models proposed

In Figure 5 presented two sets of equations that represent the abacus model proposed here. The difference
between the boxes are the type of mathematical formulation adopted. For any of the three structures, the set of
responses is the same.

D0 = 2.605,3602 N-0,2465 N = 7,2024 x 1013 x D0-4,0568

SCI = 2.077,7335 N-0,3037 N = 8,3928 x 1010 x SCI-3,2927

BDI = 632,4255 N-0,2603 N = 5,7636 x 1010 x BDI-3,8417

OU

BCI = 142,4329 N-0,1959 N = 9,8496 x 1010 x BCI-5,1046

R = 1,5727 N0,3099 N = 0,2320 x R3,2268

Figure 5. Equations of fatigue models proposed to estimate the pavement remaining life

There were developed ranges of values for the study and fatigue models proposed. These ranges showed in Table
3 for parameters D0, R, SCI, BDI and BCI, and the lanes of traffic in the methods usually adopted in Brazil. As
can be seen in the manual DNIT [1].

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 Table 3. Range of recommended values for the proposed model
DBP N 1x107 1x107 > N 1x106 1x106 > N 1x105 N 1x105
D0 [10-2 mm] < 50 50 - 90 90 - 150 > 150
R [m] > 230 230 - 110 110 - 60 < 60
-2
SCI [10 mm] < 15 15 - 30 30 - 60 > 60
-2
BDI [10 mm] < 10 10 - 15 15 - 30 > 30
BCI [10-2 mm] <6 6 - 10 10 - 15 > 15

To illustrate the fatigue models proposed a theoretical example was designed to estimate the remaining life of
the structures and was analyzed the structures of selected critical points and compared with geometric and elastic
characteristics.

4. THEORETICAL EXAMPLE

For this example we used three theoretical structures designated by the letter D and they have the deflection
value equal to 62,9x10-2 mm and they are presented in Figure 6.

Structure D1 Structure D2 Structure D3

D0 62,9x10-2 mm D0 62,9x10-2 mm D0 62,9x10-2 mm

HAC = 5 cm HAC = 10 cm HAC = 10 cm
2,47x10-4 cm/cm 2,81x10-4 cm/cm
EAC = 22.500 kgf/cm t EAC = 45.000 kgf/cm t EAC = 15.000 kgf/cm t 4,95x10-4 cm/cm

HBASE = 15 cm
HBASE = 45 cm HBASE = 30 cm
EBASE = 2.250 kgf/cm

EBASE = 1.500 kgf/cm

EBASE = 3.000 kgf/cm
ESG = 750 kgf/cm
V 8,79x10-4 cm/cm
ESG = 1.250 kgf/cm
ESG = 750 kgf/cm
V 4,65x10-4 cm/cm V 5,67x10-4 cm/cm

SCI = 30,4 x 10-2 mm E1/E2 = 7,5 SCI = 19,7 x 10-2 mm E1/E2 = 20 SCI = 32,2 x 10-2 mm E1/E2 = 10
-2 -2 -2
BDI = 10,6 x 10 mm E2/E3 = 4 BDI = 17,2 x 10 mm E2/E3 = 3 BDI = 15,8 x 10 mm E2/E3 = 1,2
BCI = 5,6 x 10-2 mm E1/E3 = 30 BCI = 9,1 x 10-2 mm E1/E3 = 60 BCI = 5,3 x 10-2 mm E1/E3 = 12
R = 116,7 m R = 198,3 m R = 115,3 m
R/D0 = 1,85 m /10-2 mm R/D0 = 3,15 m /10-2 mm R/D0 = 1,83 m /10-2 mm

Figure 6. Deflection basin of structures with D0 = 62,9 x10-2 mm

For each structure was estimated the pavement remaining life, through the value of DBP calculated.

The structure D1 presented the value D0=62,9 x10-2 mm, Nremaining=3,63 x106, however critical number N is
equal to 1,08 x106 for the parameter R, which is very close to the result for the parameter SCI (Nremaining=
1,10x106). Both results reflect the concrete asphalt with 5,0 cm of thickness and modulus (ECA) equal to
22.500 kgf /cm .

The structure D2 also showed D0 = 62,9 x10-2 mm and Nremaining = 3,63x106, however the critical number N is
equal to 1,04 x106 for BDI. Unlike the D1 structure with disabilities in the concrete asphalt, the structure D2 has
a thinner base (HBase = 15,0 cm) with lower modulus of resilience, therefore, reflected in the lower number N.
As its concrete asphalt has a thickness of 10,0 cm and modulus of 45.000 kgf/cm, their number N for the
parameters SCI and R are more than 4,63 x106.

The estimated remaining life for the structure D3 is shown in Figure 7, and its critical number N is equal to
9,13x105 for SCI. Although the structure has 10,0 cm of concrete asphalt thickness and the modulus of resilience
is equal to 15.000 kgf/cm , this value contributed to the result of the number N critical. This structure has a

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value of subgrade modulus equal to 1.250 kgf/cm2, characterized by a number N, for parameter BCI is equal to
1,92 x107.
REMAINING PAVEMENT LIFE

DEFLECTION [10-2 mm] AND RADIUS OF CURVATURE [m]

1.000

100

10

3,63E+06 1,52E+07
30,42
1,08E+06 1,10E+06 6,73E+06 30,42

0
1,00E+05 1,00E+06 1,00E+07 1,00E+08
0,10
10,56
NUMBER N STRUCTURE D1 10,56
DEFLECTION [10-2 mm] AND RADIUS OF CURVATURE [m]

PRO 11/79
1.000 Do SCI BDI BCI R 0,10

PRO 269/94 Do - Calculado SCI - Calculado BDI - Calculado BCI - Calculado R - Calculado 5,58
5,58

100

10

3,63E+06
6,00E+06
1,26E+06
4,63E+06
1,04E+06
0
1,00E+05 1,00E+06 1,00E+07 1,00E+08

NUMBER N STRUCTURE D2

1.000
PRO 11/79 Do SCI BDI BCI R
DEFLECTION [10-2 mm] AND RADIUS OF CURVATURE [m]

PRO 269/94 Do - Calculado SCI - Calculado BDI - Calculado BCI - Calculado R - Calculado

100

10

1,04E+06

3,63E+06 1,92E+07
1,44E+06
9,13E+05
0
1,00E+05 1,00E+06 1,00E+07 1,00E+08

NUMBER N STRUCTURE D3

PRO 11/79 Do SCI BDI BCI R

PRO 269/94 Do - Calculated SCI - Calculated BDI - Calculated BCI - Calculated R - Calculated

Figure 7. Estimation of remaining life for the structures D1, D2 and D3

Although the three structures have the same value of deflection, deficiencies in each one occurs in different
layers. By means of the methodologies available of restoration, for example, the procedure DNER PRO-11/79
[2] to restore solution for three structures would be exactly the same, since values of maximum deflection are
identical.

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The use of DBP assists in the identification of the problems in each layers of the pavement and can obtain a
better solution for restoration an existing pavement.

CONCLUSIONS

The use of DBP (Deflection Basin Parameters) enables an expansive flexible pavement structural evaluation of
existing pavement, identifying what are the critical layers through the deflection values that are usually obtained
in the field, using the FWD equipment.

It was observed that although some surfaces have the same value of maximum deflection (D0), they may have
different deflection of other parameters, demonstrating that the maximum deflection (D 0) alone is not sufficient
to characterize the condition of a pavement, that claim the studies found in the literature, as Paiva [11], Suzuki
[13], Souza [12], Nagao [10] and others.

With these models can be verified in a simplified form with the results of FWD, the evolution of structural
parameters as a function of traffic and period of time, or to estimate the pavement remaining life according to the
deflection basin.

REFERENCES:

[1] DEPARTAMENTO NACIONAL DE INFRAESTRUTURA DE TRANSPORTES DNIT. Manual de

Pavimentao. Rio de Janeiro, 2006.
[2] DEPARTAMENTO NACIONAL DE ESTRADAS DE RODAGEM - DNER. DNER-PRO 011/79.
Avaliao estrutural dos pavimentos flexveis: Procedimento B. Rio de Janeiro, 1979.
[3] DEPARTAMENTO NACIONAL DE ESTRADAS DE RODAGEM - DNER. DNER-PRO 269/94.
Projeto de restaurao de pavimentos flexveis. Rio de Janeiro, 1994.
[4] HORAK, E. Aspects of deflection basin parameters used in a mechanistic rehabilitation design procedure
for flexible pavements in South Africa. 1987. Thesis (PhD of Civil Engineering) - Department of Civil
Engineering, University of Pretoria, Pretoria - South Pretoria, 1987.
[5] HORAK, E.; EMERY, S. Falling Weight Deflectometer bowl parameters as analysis tool for pavement
structural evaluations. In: ARRB CONFERENCE, 22., 2006, Canberra. Proceedings... Australian Road
Research Board, 2006.
[6] KILARESKI, W. P.; ANANI, B. A. Evaluation of in-situ moduli and pavement life from deflection
basins. In: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF ASPHALT
PAVEMENTS, 5., 1982, The Netherlands. Proceedings... Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1982.
[7] LOPES, F. M. Pavimentos flexveis com revestimento asfltico avaliao estrutural a partir dos
parmetros de curvatura da bacia de deformao. 2012. Dissertao (Mestrado em Engenharia Civil) -
Programa de Ps-Graduao da Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Universidade
Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2012.
[8] MAREE, J. H.; JOOSTE, F. J. Structural classification of pavements through the use of IDM deflection
basin parameters. PR-91/325, South African Roads Board, Sandton, 1992.
[9] MOREIRA, M. R. P. Um mtodo de avaliao de pavimento flexveis com base no raio de curvatura da
linha elstica das deflexes. In: REUNIO DE PAVIMENTAO URBANA, 13., 1977, Rio de Janeiro.
Anais... Rio de Janeiro: ABPv, 1977.
[10] NAGAO, E. M. Consideraes de parmetros de curvatura da bacia de deformao e do nmero estrutural
no dimensionamento de reforo de pavimentos flexveis. 2001. Dissertao (Mestrado em Engenharia
Civil) - Escola Politcnica, Universidade de So Paulo, So Paulo, 2001.
[11] PAIVA, C. E. L. Contribuio para anlise e interpretao de bacias de deformao. 1989. Tese
(Doutorado em Engenharia Civil) - Escola Politcnica, Universidade de So Paulo, So Paulo, 1989.
[12] SOUZA, P. R. B. Consideraes sobre a utilizao de parmetros de curvatura da bacia de deformao
para avaliao estrutural de pavimentos. 1995. Dissertao (Mestrado em Engenharia Civil) - Escola
Politcnica, Universidade de So Paulo, So Paulo, 1995.
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[13] SUZUKI, C. Y. Contribuio estudo de pavimentos rodovirios com estrutura invertida (sub-base
cimentada. 1992. Tese (Doutorado em Engenharia Civil) - Escola Politcnica, Universidade de So Paulo,
So Paulo, 1992.

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