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
Pavement response
models (o, c, o)
Incremental fatigue
damage models
Transfer functions
Performance prediction
models (rutting, %
cracks, etc.)
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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 (M
R
)
Measures stress-strain relationship
Units: MPa
Typical values: 30 to 300 MPa
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Heavy Duty Pavement Design
Method
Material Characterization
Subgrade
Effect of Moisture Content
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
0 5 10 15 20
Moisture Content, %
M
o
d
u
l
u
s
,

M
P
a
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Heavy Duty Pavement Design
Method
Material
Characterization
Subbase and
Roadbase
Elastic Modulus E
Poissons Ratio

Definitions of E and .
AD/2
o
l
Al
c
l
= Al/l
c
t
= AD/D
E = o/c
= c
l
/c
t

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design
Method
Material Characterization
Surface Layer
Asphalt Mix
Dynamic Modulus E* (Witczak Equation)
log . . . ( ) . .
.
. . . . ( ) .
( . ` . log( ) . log( ))
E V
V
V V e
a
beff
beff a
f
= +

+
|
\

|
.
| +
+ +
+

1249937 0 29232 0 001767 0 002841 0 058097
0802208
3871977 0 0021 0 003958 0 000017 0 005470
1
200 200
2
4
4 38 38
2
34
0 6033 3 0 313351 0 393532


q

bitumen viscosity
loading frequency
air voids
effective bitumen content
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

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Heavy Duty Pavement Design
Method
Material Characterization
Surface Layer
Asphalt Mix

10
100
1000
10000
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
Temperature, C
M
o
d
u
l
u
s
,

M
P
a
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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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Layer 1
HMA
E
1
Layer 3
Subgrade Soil
E
3

h
1

h
2

No bottom boundary, assume soil goes on infinitely.
No
horizontal
boundary,
assume
layers
extend
infinitely.
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
Deflection (o)
Tensile Strain (c
t
)
Compressive Strain (c
v
)
Layered Elastic Model Representation of a Pavement
Layer 2
Granular
Base
E
2
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Heavy Duty Pavement Design
Method
Pavement Response Model
Critical Pavement Responses and Locations

Location Response
Pavement surface Deflection (vertical)
Bottom of HMA layer(s) Horizontal tensile strain
Top of intermediate layer
(base or subbase)
Vertical compressive
strain
Top of subgrade 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
N
f
= f
1
(c
t
)
-f2
(E
1
)
-f3

Modulus effect is small (f3 is smaller than f2)
Several models that include only strain : N
f
= f
1
(c
t
)
-f2



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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):
c
p
= a(c)
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 = E n
i
/N
i
s 1.0

where n
i
= actual number of repetitions
for load i
N
i
= 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
1 Porland Cement
Concrete
200

3000 0.15
2 Soilfix Stabilized
Aggrage
300 6890 0.2

3 Compact Soil 0.4
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Case Study
Pavement Response Calculations
Critical Stresses in Pavement Structure
Loc# Layer
Coordinates (mm) Normal Stress (kPa) Shear Stress (kPa)
X Y Z X Y Z YZ XZ XY
1 1 0 0 200 -1970.76 -2461.34
350.1
9 0 0 0
2 1 171.5 0 200 -2207.53 -2660.59 407 0 0 0
3 3 0 0 500 35.1 35.28 37.04 0 0 0
4 3 171.5 0 500 36.51 36.62 38.49 0 0 0
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Case Study
Pavement Response Calculations
Critical Strains and Displacements in Pavement
Structure
Loc Layer
Coordinates (mm) Normal MicroStrain
Displacement
(micrometer)
X Y Z X Y Z X Y Z
1 1 0 0 200 -82.7 -110.91 50.75 15.3 0 1067.43
2 1 171.5 0 200 -93.47 -119.53 56.86 0 0 1081.58
3 3 0 0 500 42.68 46.84 89.52 -7.59 0 1059.58
4 3 171.5 0 500 45.1 47.91 93.01 0 0 1072.66
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Case Study
Pavement Life Prediction
Fatigue Cracking Model


Rutting Model


Results:
Fatigue Rutting
Applied Numbers 1825000 1825000
Allowed Numbers 1.54E+07 2.41E+08
Damage Factor 0.12 0.01
MR
N
f
o
61 . 17 61 . 17 log =
87 . 3
16
1
10
|
|
.
|

\
|
=
v
r
N
c
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Thank you!