Summary:

Pavement-ME (mechanistic-empirical) analysis and design procedure is in the implementation stages for designing new and rehabilitated pavements in Michigan. Several studies were performed in the recent past to characterize traffic, material properties, and local calibration of the performance models to address the local materials and construction practices in the Pavement-ME procedure. While all the local materials and calibration of performance models were addressed to improve the local applicability and the accuracy of the approach, there are still some data gaps, especially for material characterization and pavement construction. For example, typical Resilient Modulus (MR) values were used for base, subbase, and subgrade moduli and initial International Roughness Index (IRI) values were back-casted for the pavement sections used in MDOT's local ME calibration. Since these values are estimated, they may not be accurate for the location, so having the actual values for new projects improves ME calibration accuracy. In addition, a limited number of Michigan rigid pavement sections were available for ME calibration, so adding more data from new sections would improve ME calibration. Furthermore, MDOT currently does not have criteria for selecting future projects for calibration and material sampling and testing for ME inputs. Thus, there is a need to have a consistent procedure to include new pavement sections in the performance model calibration and to obtain actual as-constructed material properties for ME inputs. Such procedures will be essential to enhance the accuracy and adequacy of the performance models for future pavement designs. Additionally, with updated Michigan ME data, MDOT would benefit from a recalibration of AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design to improve design prediction accuracy.

Publications:

• Final Report
• Spotlight