Local Calibration of MEPDG for Flexible Pavements in New Mexico
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 139, Issue 10
Abstract
Local calibration of the mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide (MEPDG) is performed by determining the pavement-performance model coefficients to minimize the difference between the measured and predicted distresses of New Mexico department of transportation (NMDOT) pavements. A total of 24 New Mexico pavement sections, which have all the MEPDG inputs and quantitative-distress values required for MEPDG calibration, were used for calibration. Pavement-performance models such as rutting, alligator cracking, longitudinal cracking, and roughness models were calibrated by an error-minimization algorithm. In the calibration methodology, the target was fixed to reduce the sum of squared errors, defined by the square of the difference between predicted and measured distress, so that any bias was eliminated and precision was increased. The optimized calibration coefficients are: , , , , and for the rutting model; , , and for alligator cracking; , , and for longitudinal cracking; and site factor = 0.015 for roughness. The results show that these calibration coefficients reduce error in the MEPDG prediction and assist better design of flexible pavements using MEPDG in New Mexico.
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Acknowledgments
This project is funded by the New Mexico Department of Transportation. The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude and appreciation to Mr. Jeff Mann, Pavement Design Section Head of NMDOT; Mr. Bob Meyers, Geotechnical Section Manager of NMDOT Materials Bureau; Mr. Virgil Valdez, Research Analyst of Research Bureau; Mr. Robert McCoy, Pavement Exploration Section Head of NMDOT Materials Bureau; and Parveez Anwar, State Asphalt Engineer, for their assistance.
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© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 28, 2012
Accepted: May 14, 2013
Published online: May 16, 2013
Published in print: Oct 1, 2013
Discussion open until: Oct 16, 2013
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