Pavement Responses from the Full-Scale Accelerated Performance Testing for Superpave and Structural Validation

Abstract

In the summer of 2002, under a new transportation pooled fund study TPF-5(019), 12 full-scale lanes of pavements with various modified asphalts were constructed at the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Pavement Testing Facility (PTF) in Virginia. The primary goal of the study is to use FHWA's two Accelerated Loading Facility (ALF) machines to validate and refine changes being proposed in the Superpave binder specification to properly grade modified asphalt binders. The study will also provide valuable data to test new features of NCHRP 1-37A Pavement Design Guide Methodology as well as other pavement technologies. During the construction, all 12 lanes were instrumented with strain gauges and survey plates. Multiple-depth deflectometers (MDDs) were installed in selected lanes. Pavement responses from both strain gauges and MDDs were measured after the construction and during the course of ALF loading in the pavement rutting and fatigue tests. This paper presents an overview of the pooled fund study, instrumentation, measured pavement responses and comparisons to the predicted responses from elastic layered solutions.