HDM-4 Pavement Deterioration Models for Indian National Highway Network

Abstract

The Highway Development and Management model (HDM-4) is a support system for decision making for highway administrators and engineers to predict the economic, social, and environmental impacts that might occur while making investment decisions. The road deterioration models contained in HDM-4 attempt to model the complex interaction between vehicles, the environment, and the pavement structure and surface. The road deterioration models predict the deterioration of the pavement over time and under traffic, which is manifested in various kinds of distress. But as each mode of distress develops and progresses at different rates in different environments, it is important that the HDM-4 relationships be calibrated to reflect local conditions and to ensure their relevance to technico-economic analysis of maintenance and rehabilitation alternatives for a road network constructed in a particular geographical region. This study has attempted to calibrate the HDM-4 pavement deterioration models for a National Highway Network located in the Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal states of India. The data have been collected for cracking, raveling, potholing, and roughness, analyzed, and used for calibration of the HDM-4 pavement deterioration model. To test the efficacy of the calibrated model, models have been validated that can be adopted for prediction of distress and development of maintenance management strategies for the Indian National Highway Network. It is expected that the HDM-4 deterioration models calibrated for the Indian National Highway Network can be used for other developing countries with similar traffic characteristics, soil types, climatic conditions, terrain type, and pavement composition.