Implementation of Texas Mechanistic-Empirical Flexible Pavement Design System

摘要

The Texas Mechanistic-Empirical Flexible Pavement Design System (TxME) allows pavement designers to take full advantage of new or premium materials, with full considerations of the influential factors including pavement structure, traffic, and environmental condition. To further enhance and implement the software, extensive laboratory tests were conducted to develop default material properties which were required to be incorporated into the TxME. These properties include the default dynamic modulus, rutting and cracking properties of asphalt concrete (AC) mixtures, and the moduli of other layer materials. Specifically, the relationships between reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) or reclaimed asphalt shingles (RAS) contents and the AC material properties were established and incorporated into the TxME. In addition, default load spectra were developed and integrated into the TxME as well. All these features greatly enhanced the practicality and ease of using TxME when conducting pavement design. Furthermore, the Texas Flexible Pavement Database was used to calibrate the TxME performance models. The calibrated TxME was then employed to predict performances of identified test sections located in different districts. The comparisons between the TxME predictions and the field performance survey results further confirmed the validation of the calibrated performance models. Finally, case studies were conducted to demonstrate the application of the TxME.