Performance of Preventive Maintenance Treatments of Flexible Pavements

Abstract

Actual pavement performances of various rehabilitation strategies for flexible pavements were evaluated using Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) distress data. Forty-eight flexible pavement sections were selected from the southern region of the United States. The Specific Pavement Studies (SPS-3) section of the LTPP database was utilized to study the effectiveness of various preventive maintenance strategies based on performance. In order to assess the rank and effectiveness of preventive maintenance treatments, three primary performance factors; average rate of distress acceleration; average duration of fix; and average distress measure were lumped together to get an overall performance factor of pavement section. The ranking based on overall performance showed that the chip seal had the highest and the crack seal had the lowest performance factors. Although, there was no direct relationship between the pavement condition index and the overall performance factor the ranking of the treatments was consistent using both the indices. The ranking results were confirmed by the pavement condition index, commonly used by the Department of Transportation. This study indicates the significance of the effective use of the LTPP distress data and provides a robust technique to evaluate the performance of various rehabilitation actions. Thus, allowing the state highway agencies to choose rehabilitation alternatives that best suit their needs based on the actual pavement performance.