Investigation of Impact of Moisture Variation on Response of Pavements through Small-Scale Models
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 21, Issue 10
Abstract
The detrimental impact of the intrusion of moisture into base and subgrade layers of pavements is well quantified based on laboratory tests, and is documented in a number of field studies. Due to construction variability and limitations of the instrumentation and test devices, the field trends contain some scatter. A series of well-controlled tests was carried out on small-scale specimens (1 m in diameter) to determine the feasibility of quantifying the impact of moisture on one base and two types of subgrade. To achieve this goal, a test setup was designed and used. To determine how realistic the outcome from these experiments was, the results were compared with those from two full-scale test sections made from the same materials. The results from the small-scale and full-scale tests were also compared with the outcomes of numerical models. The experimental results from the small-scale and full-scale tests were quite similar. The trends from the numerical models were also similar to the experimental results; however, a transfer function was needed to match the two. Based on this study, the small-scale tests can lead to similar outcomes much faster and with enormously less cost in comparison to full-scale field tests.
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Acknowledgments
The writers wish to acknowledge the support of the Texas Department of Transportation. Also, the writers expand their appreciation to the staff of UTEP and Texas Transportation Institute for assisting them in conducting the lab and field tests.
References
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 21 • Issue 10 • October 2009
Pages: 553 - 560
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: May 8, 2007
Accepted: Feb 9, 2009
Published online: Sep 15, 2009
Published in print: Oct 2009
Notes
Note. Associate Editor: Manoochehr Zoghi
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