Unsaturated Soil Modeling for Airfield Pavement Design
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 140, Issue 1
Abstract
This study presents results of one of the first in situ assessment studies on the use of the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (M-EPDG) methodology applied to the design of airfield pavements. The M-EPDG’s Enhanced Integrated Climatic Model (EICM) introduces unsaturated soil modeling techniques into the prediction of moisture changes in the unbound materials throughout the life of pavements for highway conditions. Field soil moisture content changes measured at several Air Force bases in the U.S. were collected from historic studies and compared to MEPDG predictions. Details and outcomes from this comparative study are presented herein. Despite significant differences in structural dimensions and geometric design, this study showed that the EICM promises to be a suitable predictive methodology to be adapted for airfield pavement conditions and has the potential to become a tool for the incorporation of unsaturated soil modeling for the design of airfield pavements, provided that several enhancements are made to the model applied to highway design. Also, a discussion on possible sources of uncertainty in the predictions of the MEPDG and a series of alternative revisions and enhancements required to incorporate the EICM with current airfield pavement design methodologies are presented.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the general overview guidance, valuable input and recommendations to enhance the manuscript from Dr. Matthew Witczak. The authors would also like to acknowledge and thank Dr. Raymond Rollings, for his assistance in collecting this historic data to the authors for their analysis.
References
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 140 • Issue 1 • January 2014
Pages: 50 - 60
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 5, 2013
Accepted: Aug 20, 2013
Published online: Dec 16, 2013
Published in print: Jan 1, 2014
Discussion open until: May 16, 2014
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