Assessment of Surface Layer Characteristic on Flexible Pavement Design Life

Abstract

The surface, a layer directly under tire load, is often made of crushed aggregate, gravel, or recycled materials. In order to extend the operational lifetime of the road, the surface serves as higher properties of materials. The impact of performance for the surface layer on the design life was examined in this research. Employing the KENPAVE software, the study examined the impact of changing the thickness of the surface layer (2″, 2.5″, and 3″) and the resilient modulus (300, 400, and 500 ksi) on the expected service life of the flexible pavement for both repeated loads 30000 and 40000. The results show that the increased surface layer thickness lead to the increase in pavement design life for all resilient modulus and both repeated loads. The percentage of increase of design life of pavement grew as the resilient modulus grew (for all repeated loads). As resilient modulus of surface layer increased, so did the pavement design life increase. The percentage of increasing the design life of pavement results from increased resilient modulus was increased with the increasing thickness layer. The percentage of improvement the design life of pavement caused by increase of resilient modulus, increase with increase the surface layer thickness (for all repeated loads).