Abstract
This paper provides an outlook on the effects of climate change and the severity and frequency of extreme weather events on the performance of flexible pavements across North America. Now more than ever, the climate is changing at a rapid pace, which will alter long-term environmental loading parameters and extreme weather events. Such alterations will pose implications for the design, maintenance, and rehabilitation of flexible pavements, especially in terms of their serviceability, safety, and functionality. In northern Canada, roads are founded on various terrain types, including thaw-sensitive ice-rich permafrost underlying terrains. Such roads have experienced signs of embankment and pavement damage, which are usually induced by the degradation of the underlying permafrost due to climate change. Therefore, the development and implementation of new permafrost thaw mitigation techniques for vulnerable roads are essential and will be discussed in this paper. Resilient flexible roads should be designed to withstand the conditions that are likely to occur during their design life, taking into account the impact of the climate change on pavement performance in response to daily and seasonal changes in heat, precipitation, freeze–thaw cycles, and extreme weather events.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to express their appreciation for the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and Climate Resilient Building-Core Public Infrastructure for their financial support and guidance. Special thanks go to NRC CO-OP Student Ethan Murphy for his editing assistance.
References
AASHTO. 1993. AASHTO guide for design pavement structures. Washington, DC: AASHTO.
AASHTO. 2014. Standard method of test for resistance of compacted asphalt mixtures to moisture-induced damage. AASHTO T283. Washington, DC: AASHTO.
Ahmed, W. A. 2014. “Mechanistic-empirical modelling of flexible pavement performance: Verification using APT measurements.” Ph.D. thesis, Division of Highway and Railway Engineering Dept. of Transport Science, Royal Institute of Technology.
Alfaro, M. C., G. A. Ciro, K. J. Thiessem, and T. Ng. 2009. “How Canada approaches design of northern roads, design guides of northern roads. Case study of degrading permafrost beneath a road embankment.” J. Cold Reg. Eng. 23 (3): 93–111. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0887-381X(2009)23:3(93).
AMAP (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program). 2017. Snow, water, ice and permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA). Oslo, Norway: AMAP.
ARA (Applied Research Associates). 2015. Methodology for the development of equivalent pavement structural design matrix for municipal roadways—Quebec City and Montreal. Final Rep. Toronto, ON: ARA.
ASTM. 2012. Standard test methods for laboratory compaction characteristics of soil using modified effort (56,000 ft-lbf/ft3 (2,700 kN-m/m3)). ASTM D1557. West Conshohocken, PA: ASTM.
ASTM. 2014. Standard test method for effect of moisture on asphalt concrete paving mixtures. ASTM D4867M. West Conshohocken, PA: ASTM.
Aursand, P. O., R. Evensen, and B. O. Lerfald. 2013. “Climate changes in Norway: Factors affecting pavement performance.” In Vol. 2 of Proc., 9th Int. Conf. on the Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways and Airfields, 537–544. Trondheim, Norway: Akademika Publishing.
Boone, N. J. 2013. “Comparison of Ontario Pavement designs using the AASHTO 1993 empirical method and the mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide method.” M.A.Sc. thesis, Civil Engineering, Univ. of Waterloo.
Brown, S. F. 1977. “Development in highway pavement engineering.” Chap. 2 in Material characterization for analytical pavement design, 41–92. London: Applied Science Publishers.
Burn, C. R., J. L. Moore, H. B. O’Neill, D. W. Hayley, J. R. Trimble, F. Calmels, S. N. Orban, and M. Idrees. 2015. “Permafrost characterization for the dempster highway.” In Proc., 7th Canadian Permafrost Conf., 1–8. Québec, QC, Canada: Canadian Geotechnical Society.
Canada’s Core Public Infrastructure Survey. 2018. Roads, bridges and tunnels. Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada.
Cheng, G., Y. Lai, and Z. Sun. 2007. “The ‘thermal semi-conductor’ effect of crushed rocks.” Permafrost Periglacial Processes 18 (2): 151–160. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.575.
Christensen, J. H., et al. 2007. “Regional climate projections.” Chap. 11 in Climate change, 2007: The physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, edited by S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K. B. Averyt, M. Tignor, and H. L. Miller, 848–940. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Egorov, I. 2019. Inter-seasonal heat transfer techniques and liquid filled freezing systems. NRC Pilot Project. Ottawa, ON: National Research Council Canada.
Egorov, I., E. Mastej, M. Braverman, and W. L. Quinton. 2019. “Investigation of the dual performance of the single-phase thermosypon and the shading cone on the ground thermal regime at the seismic line in the subarctic wetland, at the zone of discontinuous permafrost, Scotty Creek, Northwest Territories.” In Proc., 18th Int. Conf. on Cold Regions Engineering and the 8th Canadian Permafrost Conf. Québec City, Canada: ICCRE. Accessed August 18, 2019. https://www.agora-inscription.ca/iccre-cpc-2019.
El-Basyouny, M., M. Witczak, and S. El-Badawy. 2005. “Verification for the calibrated permanenet deformation models for the 2002 design guide.” J. Assoc. Asphalt Paving Technol. 74: 601–652.
El Hussein, H. M. 1991. “Stripping of asphalt concrete surfaces.” Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Carleton Univ.
Goering, D. J. 1998. “Experimental investigation of air convection embankments for permafrost-resistant roadway design.” In Proc., 7th Int. Conf. on Permafrost, 319–326. Québec City, Canada: Centre d'études nordiques, Université Laval.
Goodrich, L. E. 1982. “The influence of snow cover on the ground thermal regime.” Can. Geotech. J. 19 (4): 421–432. https://doi.org/10.1139/t82-047.
Hajj, E., R. Siddharthan, P. Sebaaly, and D. Weitzel. 2007. “Laboratory-based unified permanent deformation model for hot mix asphalt mixtures.” J. Test. Eval. 35 (3): 272–280. https://doi.org/10.1520/JTE13153.
Hu, X., S. Hu, and L. Walubita. 2008. “Investigation of fatigue cracking: Bottom up and top down.” In Pavement cracking: Mechanisms, modeling, detection, testing and case histories, edited by I. L. Al-Qadi, T. Scarpas, and A. Loizos, 333–344. London: Taylor & Francis.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2007. Emission scenarios: Summary of policymakers. Special report of IPCC Working Group III. Geneva: IPCC.
Knott, J. F., J. S. Daniel, J. M. Jacobs, and P. Kirshen. 2018. “Adaptation planning to mitigate coastal-road pavement damage from groundwater rise caused by sea-level rise.” Transp. Res. Rec. 2672 (2): 11–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361198118757441.
Lepage, J., and G. Doré. 2010. “Experimentation of mitigation techniques to reduce the effects of permafrost degradation on transportation infrastructures at beaver creek experimental road site (Alaska Highway, Yukon).” In Proc., Join 63rd Canadian Geotechnical Conf. & 6th Canadian Permafrost Conf., 526–533.
Li, Q., L. Mills, and S. McNeil. 2011. A report submitted to the University of Delaware University Transportation Center (UD-UTC). UDUTC Final Rep. Newark, DE: Univ. of Delaware.
Maadani, O. 2015. “Evaluation of the AASHTO mechanistic empirical pavement design guide: An experimental and analytical investigation of the performance of flexible roads.” Ph.D. thesis, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carleton Univ.
Maadani, O., and A. Abd El Halim. 2016. “Environmental considerations in the AASHTO mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide: Impacts on performance.” Transp. Res. Rec. 31 (3): 04017008. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CR.1943-5495.0000126.
Meagher, W., J. S. Daniel, J. Jacobs, and E. Linder. 2012. “Method for evaluating implications of climate change for design and performance of flexible pavements.” Transp. Res. Rec. 2305 (1): 111–120. https://doi.org/10.3141/2305-12.
Mills, B., S. Tighe, J. Andrey, J. Smith, S. Parm, and K. Huen. 2007. Road well-traveled: Implications of climate change for pavement infrastructure in southern Canada. Ottawa, ON: Environment Canada, Adaptation and Impacts Research Division.
NCHRP (National Cooperative Highway Research Program). 2004. Guide for mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide of new and rehabilitated pavement structures (M-EPDG). Project 1-37A. Washington, DC: Transportation Research Board, National Research Council.
Nelson, F. E., O. A. Anisimov, and N. I. Shiklomanov. 2001. “Subsidence risk from thawing permafrost.” Nature 410 (6831): 889–890. https://doi.org/10.1038/35073746.
Parry, M. L., O. F. Canziani, J. P. Palutikof, P. J. van der Linden, and C. E. Hanson. 2007. Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the fourth assessment. Rep. of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Qiao, Y. 2015. “Flexible pavements and climate change: impact of climate change on the performance, maintenance, and life-cycle costs of flexible pavements.” Ph.D. thesis, Faculty of Engineering, Univ. of Nottingham.
Reckard, M. 1985. White paint for highway thaw settlement control. Rep. No. FHWAAK-RD-85-16. Washington, DC: Federal Highway Administration.
Saha, J., S. Nassiri, A. Bayat, and H. Soleymani. 2014. “Evaluation of the effects of Canadian climate conditions on the MEPDG predictions for flexible pavement performance.” Int. J. Pavement Eng. 15 (5): 392–401. https://doi.org/10.1080/10298436.2012.752488.
Schuur, E. A. G., et al. 2015. “Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback.” Nature 520 (7546): 171–179. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14338.
Shen, S., and S. Carpenter. 2007. “Development of an asphalt fatigue model based on energy principles.” Asphalt Paving Technol. 76: 525–573.
TAC (Transportation Association of Canada). 2013. Pavement asset design and management guide. Ottawa, ON: TAC.
Thyagarajan, S. 2009. “Improvements to strain computation and reliability analysis of flexible pavements in the mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide.” Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington State Univ.
Tighe, S. L., J. Smith, B. Mills, and J. Andrey. 2008. “Using the MEPDG to assess climate change impacts on southern Canadian roads.” In Proc., 7th Int. Conf. on Managing Pavement Assets, 1–13. Calgary, AB, Canada: Transportation Research Board.
Truax, D., M. Heitzman, G. Takle, D. Herzmann, and D. Timm. 2011. Developing M-EPDG climate data input files for Mississippi. Final Rep. No. FHWAY ME-DOT-RD-11-232. Washington, DC: FHWA.
Waldhoff, A., W. Buttlar, and J. Kim. 2000. “Evaluation of thermal cracking at MN/road using Superpave IDT.” In Proc., 45th Annual Conf. on Canadian Technical Asphalt Association, 228–259. Laval, Canada: Polyscience Publications.
Warren, F. J., and D. S. Lemmen. 2014. Canada in a changing climate: Sector perspectives on impacts and adaptation. Ottawa, ON: Government of Canada.
Wright, P., and L. Zheng. 1994. “Visco-elasto-plastic behaviour of a hot rolled asphalt mixture under repeated loading and the effects of temperature.” In Proc., 4th Int. Conf. Bearing Capacity of Roads and Airfields, 1035–1065. Minneapolis: Minnesota Department of Transportation.
Xu, J., and D. Goering. 2008. “Experimental validation of passive permafrost cooling systems.” Cold Reg. Sci. Technol. 53 (3): 283–297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2007.09.002.
Yin, H., G. Chehab, and S. Stoffels. 2006. A case study: Assessing the sensitivity of the coefficient of thermal contraction of AC mixture on thermal crack prediction. Reston, VA: ASCE.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 35 • Issue 4 • December 2021
Copyright
Crown Copyright © 2021 Published by American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 3, 2020
Accepted: Jun 28, 2021
Published online: Aug 11, 2021
Published in print: Dec 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jan 11, 2022
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Asphalt pavements
- Climate change
- Climates
- Cold regions engineering
- Design (by type)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Environmental engineering
- Frost
- Geography
- Geomatics
- Gravels
- Highway and road design
- Highway and road management
- Highway transportation
- Highways and roads
- Infrastructure
- Pavement condition
- Pavement design
- Pavements
- Permafrost
- Sight distances
- Terrain
- Transportation engineering
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.
Cited by
- Varun Mishra, Ayan Sadhu, Towards the effect of climate change in structural loads of urban infrastructure: A review, Sustainable Cities and Society, 10.1016/j.scs.2022.104352, 89, (104352), (2023).
- Evgeny Chuvilin, Natalia Sokolova, Boris Bukhanov, Changes in Unfrozen Water Contents in Warming Permafrost Soils, Geosciences, 10.3390/geosciences12060253, 12, 6, (253), (2022).
- Surya T. Swarna, Kamal Hossain, Climate change impact and adaptation for highway asphalt pavements: a literature review, Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, 10.1139/cjce-2021-0209, 49, 7, (1109-1120), (2022).