Impact of Unsaturated Flow on Pavement Edgedrain Performance
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 131, Issue 1
Abstract
Water movement in pavement sections that included an edgedrain trench was investigated by means of numerical simulations that explicitly included unsaturated water flow. Most of the resulting water movement from infiltration in response to simulated rainfall events occurred under unsaturated conditions, that is, under negative water pressures. Fully saturated conditions and positive pressures most often only occur in the drainage trench bottom. Drainage efficiency was shown to depend on the base course and edgedrain backfill material properties and configuration. The saturated hydraulic conductivity of the base course was shown to not be a reliable indicator of drainage efficiency. The performance of the edgedrain trench depends on whether water directly enters the trench through a shoulder crack, or has to first move through the adjacent base course to reach the trench. In the latter case, the trench backfill material can serve as a restriction to flow to the trench even if the material has a very large saturated hydraulic conductivity.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgment
Support for this work was provided in part through a cooperative agreement between the Federal Highway Administration and the University of New Mexico.
References
Ahmed, Z., White, T. D., and Kuczek, T. (1997). “Comparative field performance of subdrainage systems.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 123(3), 194–201.
Birgisson, B., and Roberson, R. (2000). “Drainage of pavement base material: Design and construction issues.” Transportation Research Record 1709, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 11–18.
Cedergren, H. R. (1994). “America’s pavements: World’s longest bathtubs.” Civ. Eng. (N.Y.), 64(9), 56–58.
Christopher, B. R., and McGuffey, V. C. (1997). “Pavement subsurface drainage systems.” NCHRP Synthesis of Highway Practice 239, Transportation Reserach Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
Drumm, E. C., Reeves, J. S., Madgett, M. R., and Trolinger, W. D. (1997). “Subgrade resilient modulus correction for saturation effects.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 123(7), 663–670.
Elsayed, A. S., and Lindly, J. K. (1996) “Estimating permeability of untreated roadway bases.” Transportation Research Record 1519, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 11–18.
Gardner, K., Mercier, Y., Roberson, R. L., Apul, D. S., and Eighmy, T. (2002). “Using HYDRUS2D as an innovative tool to study water movement in pavement systems.” Proc., Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., Paper 02-3702.
Heckel, L. (1997). “Performance problems of open-graded drainage layers under continuously reinforced concrete pavement in Illinois.” Transportation Research Record 1596, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 51–57.
Henry, K. S., Stormont, J. C., and Holtz, R. D. (2000). “Geosynthetic capillary barriers in pavements.” Proc., Geotech. Spec. Conf., ASCE, Reston, Va.
Henry, K. S., Stormont, J. C., Ramos, R. D., and Barna, L. (2001). “Geocomposite capillary barrier drain for limiting moisture changes in pavement subgrades and bases.” Rep. NCHRP-IDEA Proj. 68, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
Hsieh, P. A., Wingle, W., and Healy, R. W. (1999). “VS2DI-a graphical software package for simulating fluid flow and solute or energy transport in variably saturated porous media.” U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Invest. Rep. 99-4130.
Kazmierowski, T. J., Bradbury, A., and Hajek, J. (1993). “Field evaluation of various types of open-graded drainage layers.” Transportation Research Record 1434, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 29–36.
Mallela, J., Titus-Glover, L., and Darter, M. (2000). “Considerations for providing subsurface drainage in jointed concrete pavements.” Transportation Research Record 1709, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 1–10.
Ramos, R. D. (2001). “Performance of a fiberglass based geocomposite capillary barrier drain.” MS Thesis, Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M.
Randolph, B. W., Steinhauser, E. P., Heydinger, A. G., and Gupta, J. D. (1996). “In situ tests for hydraulic conductivity of drainable bases,” Transportation Research Record 1519, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 36–40.
Richardson, D. N. (1997). “Drainability characteristics of granular pavement base material.” J. Transp. Eng., 123(5), 385–392.
Ridgeway, H. H. (1982). “Pavement subsurface drainage system.” NCHRP Synthesis of Highway Practice 96, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
Stormont, J. C. (1995). “The performance of two capillary barriers during constant infiltration.” Proc., Landfill Closures … Environmental Protection and Land Recovery Geotech. Spec. Pub. No. 53, ASCE, New York, 77–92.
Stormont, J. C., and Anderson, C. E. (1999). “Capillary barrier effect from underlying coarser soil lay,” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 125(8), 641–648.
Thom, N. H., and Brown, S. F. (1987). “Effect of moisture on the structural performance of a crushed-limestone road base.” Transportation Research Record 1121, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 50–56.
van Genuchten, M. Th. (1980). “A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 44, 892–899.
Wyatt, T. R., and Macari, E. J. (2000). “Effectiveness analysis of subsurface drainage features based on design adequacy.” Transportation Research Record 1709, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 69–77.
Yu, H. T., Khazanovich, L., Rao, S. P., Darter, M. I., and von Quintus, H. (1998). “Guidelines for subsurface drainage based on performance.” Final Rep. NCHRP Proj. 1-34, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 20, 2002
Accepted: Mar 30, 2004
Published online: Jan 1, 2005
Published in print: Jan 2005
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.