The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) currently has an existing jointed plain concrete pavement(JPCP) design based on mechanistic-empirical (M-E) principles. However, their continuously reinforced concretepavement (CRCP) design procedure is empirical and based on a modified AASHTO nomograph for jointedreinforced concrete pavement. The objective of this study was to develop and implement an M-E designprocedure that IDOT could use for routine CRCP design. The proposed procedure is based on mechanisticempiricaldesign principles taken largely from the models presented in NCHRP 1-37A and on work completed byDr. Dan Zollinger of Texas A&M University. The equations for calculating the mean crack spacing and thenumber of punchouts per mile at the end of the design life for a given traffic volume, pavement layer and CRCslab geometry, shoulder type, and layer material properties have been implemented in a user-friendlyspreadsheet. Several new developments in the proposed design process are fatigue damage accumulations atthe critical top and bottom location in the CRCP slab, equations for calculating the equivalent damage ratio forseveral shoulder types and crack stiffness values, application of a strength reduction factor to the concretestress ratio calculated at the surface of the CRCP, and a new logistic-type punchout prediction model. Due tothe numerous measured and assumed input variables in this CRCP design framework, the mechanistic analysiswas calibrated against CRCP field performance data from Illinois and CRCP accelerated pavement test datacompleted at the University of Illinois.
展开▼
