Local Calibration of the MEPDG for Flexible Pavement Design.

摘要

In an effort to move toward pavement designs that employ mechanistic principles, the AASHTO Joint Task Force on Pavements initiated an effort in 1996 to develop an improved pavement design guide. The project called for the development of a design guide that employs existing state-of-the-practice mechanistic-based models and design procedures. The product of this initiative became available in 2004 in the form of software called the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG). The performance prediction models in the MEPDG were calibrated and validated using performance data measured from hundreds of pavement sections across the United States. However, these nationally calibrated performance models in the MEPDG do not necessarily reflect local materials, local construction practices, and local traffic characteristics. Therefore, in order to produce accurate pavement designs for the State of North Carolina, the MEPDG distress prediction models must be recalibrated using local materials, traffic, and environmental data. The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) has decided to adopt the MEPDG for future pavement design work and has awarded a series of research projects to North Carolina State University. The primary objective of this study is to calibrate the MEPDG performance prediction models for local materials and conditions using the data and findings generated from this series of research projects.