Postflooding Asphalt Pavement Condition Assessment for Roadway Operation Strategy
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part B: Pavements
Volume 150, Issue 1
Abstract
Flooding can cause severe damage to roadway infrastructure due to inundated foundation. It is important to evaluate the postflooding pavement performance and make decisions for roadway opening and operation. Many studies have evaluated pavement performance after flooding, but the existing methods are either oversimplified or not applicable without information of realistic pavement saturation conditions. This study developed a new method to assess quantitatively the postflooding pavement performance, and proposes a decision support framework for roadway operation based on falling weight deflectometer (FWD) testing. Field measurements were collected to characterize the nonlinear modulus of pavement unbound materials under realistic stress states and moisture conditions. Finite-element models were developed and validated to relate FWD deflections to critical pavement responses under traffic loading. The results show that FWD deflections have good correlations with pavement surface deflections and tensile strains at the bottom of the asphalt layer under moving loads, which facilitates prediction of pavement performance. With the information of traffic loading on the roadway, pavement damage ratios at different saturation conditions after flooding can be evaluated. By comparing the estimated damage ratio and the agency-determined threshold, either truck weight limits or volume control can be adopted to mitigate the impact of flooding on pavement damage. With the method proposed in this study, transportation agencies can implement roadway operation considering performance deterioration and recovery of postflooding pavement.
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Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
Author contributions: Study conception and design: H. Wang; data collection: X. Chen; analysis and interpretation of results: X. Chen and H. Wang; and manuscript preparation: X. Chen and H. Wang. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part B: Pavements
Volume 150 • Issue 1 • March 2024
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 23, 2022
Accepted: Aug 24, 2023
Published online: Nov 3, 2023
Published in print: Mar 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Apr 3, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Asphalt pavements
- Continuum mechanics
- Dynamic loads
- Dynamics (solid mechanics)
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering mechanics
- Finite element method
- Floods
- Gravels
- Highway and road conditions
- Highway and road management
- Highway transportation
- Highways and roads
- Infrastructure
- Methodology (by type)
- Moving loads
- Numerical methods
- Pavement condition
- Pavement deflection
- Pavements
- Solid mechanics
- Structural dynamics
- Transportation engineering
- Water and water resources
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Cited by
- Xiao Chen, Hao Wang, Evaluation of pavement resilience to flooding with inverted pavement structure, Road Materials and Pavement Design, 10.1080/14680629.2024.2329184, (1-20), (2024).