Flexible Pavement Design: State-of-the-Art—1975

This paper presents a state-of-the-art of asphalt concrete pavement design. It includes a summary of a few of the widely used existing design procedures for both highway and airfield pavements as well as a summary of some of the research of the past 10 yr considered to be implementable. In the first portion of the paper, a framework of pavement design concepts is established and the current design procedures are viewed within this framework. The second section of the paper summarizes recent research that can be used to extend the bounds of pavement design to consider increased loadings beyond those associated with existing procedures and more effective use of stabilized and marginal materials and provide improved reliability in design. This implementable research includes improved methods for determining useful material properties, predicting pavement response to both load and environmental effects, and distress prediction including fatigue, rutting and thermal cracking.