Determination of Creep Compliance and Indirect Tensile Strength for Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG)

PI: Balasingam Muhunthan (WSU), muhuntha@wsu.edu
Dates: 01/16/2015 – 06/15/2016
Status: Completed
UTC Project Sheet
Final Technical Report

Pavement condition greatly affects the safety of driver. For instance, the rutting in wheelpath creates hydroplaning which can leads to loss of control of vehicles. The roughness, e.g. potholes, can pose safety hazards to the driver. Therefore, improving the pavement condition by designing cost-effective long-lasting pavement is of paramount importance. The adoptions of Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) align well with this goal, when compared to traditional empirical pavement design.

 Dynamic modulus, indirect tensile (IDT) creep compliance and strength are the three primary mechanistic properties of asphalt mix for the asphalt pavement in the MEPDG. Thermal cracking is one of dominant distresses in Northern States in the U.S. Based the NCHRP 01-40, the thermal cracking prediction by the Pavement ME is very sensitive (highest category) to the IDT creep compliance and IDT strength. The MEPDG is a significant improvement over empirical design method and the models in MEPDG were developed based on national database of material properties and are not applicable to local materials. Therefore, there needs a local calibration of models and establishment of catalog of typical material properties, including IDT creep compliance and strength at low temperature, for local material. Without catalog of material properties in a state, the calibration of models would not be valid. The objective of this proposed research is to develop catalogs of IDT creep compliance and IDT strength for thermal cracking for materials in Idaho.