Date of Award
2017
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Specialization
Civil Engineering
Department
Civil and Environmental Engineering
First Advisor
K. Wayne Lee
Abstract
Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) has been rehabilitating asphalt pavements, and looking for a sustainable strategy. A Rhode Island Highway, Route 165 in Exeter was rehabilitated in 2013 with five different strategies, i.e., control (without additive), calcium chloride, asphalt emulsion, Portland cement and Geo-grid. The base/subbase layer (between asphalt base and existing granular subbase) was prepared by Full Depth Reclamation (FDR) method. The goal of the project was to predict the performance of rehabilitated asphalt pavement with different base/subbase strategies and to select the best reclamation technique. The AASHTOW are Pavement ME Design (PavementME) software was selected to predict performance. It requires four different categories of inputs, i.e., general information, traffic input, climatic input, and material properties. Although RIDOT was able to prepare inputs of General information, Traffic, and Weather, there were no accurate material input parameters. Material properties required extensive testing which includes resilient modulus, dynamic modulus, creep compliance, thermal conductivity, poison’s ratio and volumetric properties. Resilient moduli of subgrade soils, existing subbase materials, and reclaimed subbase/base materials with and without additives were determined at University of Rhode Island (URI). Properties of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) including dynamic modulus and creep compliance were determined in the present study. It was observed from the outputs that asphalt concrete top down fatigue cracking happened on all strategies whereas the one with Portland cement only passed for thermal cracking and permanent deformation in asphalt layer. It was also observed that the strategy with Portland cement performed the best whereas the one with asphalt emulsion did the worst, i.e., it would last for only 5 years. In summary, it was predicted with available input parameters that the reclaimed strategies in order of best performance were: Portland cement, calcium chloride, control, geo-grid and asphalt emulsion. It has been recommended that predicted performance will be evaluated with long-term field monitoring, and that results of the present study will be utilized for future rehabilitation projects.
Recommended Citation
Hassan, Syed Amir, "Development of Input Parameters to Predict the Performance of Rhabilitated Asphalt Pavements" (2017). Open Access Master's Theses. Paper 1124.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/theses/1124
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