Prediction of Pavement Life of Flexible Pavements under the Traffic Loading Conditions of Bangladesh

摘要

The purpose of this study is to predict the service life of flexible pavements in Bangladesh under rampant overloading. For this study, axle load data, international roughness index (IRI), overlay history of several road sections of flexible pavements constructed by Roads and Highways Department were collected. Firstly, survival curves were developed showing that the actual pavement life was about 4.88 years. Secondly, the intersecting point of the superimposed graphs combining damaging factor vs. axle load and pavement life vs. axle load graphs showed that premature failure of flexible pavements occurs at 4.5 years. So, it is appeared that with present level of overloaded traffic condition, flexible pavements sustain for only 5 years which is one-fourth of its design life. Such reduced pavement life expectancy due to overloading is creating a big concern for Bangladesh since it is incurring high maintenance cost as well as hampering funding for new infrastructure development.