Rest Period Characteristics under Highway Truck Traffic for Mechanistic-Empirical Design of Asphalt Concrete Pavement
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part B: Pavements
Volume 149, Issue 1
Abstract
Fatigue cracking due to repeated truck traffic loads is the leading cause of failure of asphalt concrete pavement in many locations. Rest periods, referring to the time intervals between successive trucks, may allow for partial or full recovery from fatigue damage and in turn extend pavement fatigue life. This paper delves into the characteristics of rest periods between highway truck traffic loads using traffic data from 40 weigh-in-motion (WIM) stations installed on California state highways and evaluates their effects on pavement performance using mechanistic-empirical incremental-recursive damage and cracking simulation (CalME software). Toward this purpose, truck traffic data were extracted from these WIM stations at selected periods throughout the year 2015 to calculate rest periods. The probability distribution of rest periods and quantiles of cumulative rest periods were calculated, respectively. Regression and statistical analysis for 0.5 quantiles (median) of cumulative rest periods were also performed for different spectra groups and seasons. It was found that rest periods are strongly correlated with the truck traffic volume regardless of the WIM station location and seasons of the year. The actual rest periods based on the nonuniform truck traffic measured from the WIM data were found to be slightly shorter than the corresponding theoretical average rest periods for uniform traffic (ARP-UT) currently assumed in CalME, likely due to truck-following. This theoretical value assumes an equal time interval between trucks all the time. After comparing pavement performance with and without rest periods, it was found that rest periods have a significant influence (30% in difference) on pavement cracking performance in the modeling. Based on this preliminary analysis, the difference in pavement performance caused by the difference between the actual rest periods and ARP-UT is minimal. It is therefore recommended to continue to use ARP-UT to account for the effect of rest periods in pavement design.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. All raw data were stored on the UCPRC server. It may require permission from UCPRC and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to access the database. The MATLAB algorithm described in the paper can be obtained from the corresponding author upon request.
Acknowledgments
This paper describes research activities that were requested and sponsored by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). This sponsorship is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Stan Norikane and Vicki Dickey at the Office of Traffic Operations in Caltrans for providing valuable support. The contents of this paper reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the State of California or the Federal Highway Administration. This paper does not represent any standard or specification. The authors confirm the paper contributions as follows: study conception and design: S. Yang, C. Kim, R. Wu, J. Harvey; data collection: S. Yang, C. Kim, analysis and interpretation of results: S. Yang, C. Kim, R. Wu; draft manuscript preparation: S. Yang, C. Kim, R. Wu, J. Harvey. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part B: Pavements
Volume 149 • Issue 1 • March 2023
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 3, 2022
Accepted: Sep 16, 2022
Published online: Nov 17, 2022
Published in print: Mar 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Apr 17, 2023
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