Life Cycle Costs Analysis of Perpetual Asphalt Pavement

Abstract

This paper analyzed the life cycle costs of three asphalt pavement structures: flexible base perpetual asphalt pavement, semi-rigid base perpetual asphalt pavement and semi-rigid base asphalt pavement which was a kind of wide-used asphalt pavement structure in china. The management costs and the user's costs among the three pavement structures were calculated respectively. Study show that the economic and social benefit of semi-rigid base perpetual asphalt pavement is the best which supplied the reasonable information for the investment decision-making of highway construction. I. INTRODUCTION Perpetual asphalt pavement structure draws the attention of all over the world as a new pavement design idea during the last few years. Its characteristic is the higher investment in the early stage of construction, thicker asphalt structure layer and the pavement damage controlled in surfacing layer. The structural damages don't occur which often happens in semi- rigid base asphalt pavement. When the pavement performance decreased to the minimum acceptable level it can be recovered just by milling and re-paving surfacing layer. The construction costs of later stage and user's costs will be saved too much. However, compared with the traditional asphalt pavement there are no definite conclusions whether the perpetual pavement has economical benefit or not. Therefore, based on the method of life cycle costs analysis, the comparison of costs between the perpetual asphalt pavement and traditional asphalt pavement will benefit to the investment decision-making of highway construction.