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INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF FREE DRAINING BASE AND SUBBASE MATERIALS UNDER FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT

Rabab'ah, Samer Rateb
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1189128048

Abstract Details

2007, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, Civil Engineering.
Providing adequate drainage to a pavement system has been considered as an important design consideration to prevent premature failures due to water related problems such as pumping action, loss of support, and rutting, among others. As a result, permeable bases with drainage efficiency and structural stability characteristics have been widely used by several state DOTs in the design and construction of pavements. The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) has adopted several types of materials specification for use as permeable bases: (a) unbounded base materials including: 307-IA,307-NJ, and 307-CE types, (b) stabilized base materials including: cement and asphalt treated base types. The main objective of this research is to study the performance of different permeable base materials used by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). Field monitored data combined with laboratory result data are used to determine the drainage efficiency of different permeable base materials used by ODOT. Analysis using Multi-Layer Linear Elastic Analysis (MLEA) and data obtained from field backcalculated resilient modulus are used to predict pavement service life for pavement section with different permeable base materials. To account for effect of environmental factors in pavement design, the Enhanced Integrated Climatic Model was used to predict temperature, moisture and frost depth data at the Project Site, Ohio. Comparisons were made between the predicted and measured moisture contents and temperature along the depth of pavement sections as well as frost depth at different times during the simulation period. Analysis was conducted to study the caracterization of permeable base materials in the new Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG). Flexible pavement designs and performance derived from the MEPDG approach are compared for different base materials over a range of asphalt concrete layer thicknesses, base materials, subgrade and other material properties. As shown consistently in this study, the impact of unbound materials layer on performance as predicted by the MEPDG methodology is less pronounced than the impact of asphalt concrete layer. Based on the concept of effective stress of unsaturated soils, the matric suction of soil was shown to be an important state variable for predicting moisture-dependent resilient modulus of cohesive soils. A prediction model is proposed and shown to be capable of predicting the resilient modulus of cohesive soils over a range of stress states and water content. The accuracy of the proposed model is validated against experimental data of A-4 and A-6 soils as well as other data available in the literature. Movement of water through the different pavement sections at the project site was modeled by the finite element method (FEM). FEM modeling taking into consideration of both saturated and unsaturated flow appears to be capable of predicting water content regime in pavement layers (base, subbase, and subgrade), as demonstrated in this study when comparing with field moisture monitoring results. Accurate simulation of the boundary and initial conditions, together with representative soil water characteristic curves and the hydraulic conductivity curves for each material, resulted in accurate predictions that match with the measured field results.
Robert Liang (Advisor)
258 p.
Engineering, Civil
permeable base; resilient modulus; pavement drainage; environmental factors; service life; EICM; moisture variation; MEPDG; unsaturated soil.

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Citations

  • Rabab'ah, S. R. (2007). INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF FREE DRAINING BASE AND SUBBASE MATERIALS UNDER FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT [Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1189128048

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Rabab'ah, Samer. INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF FREE DRAINING BASE AND SUBBASE MATERIALS UNDER FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT. 2007. University of Akron, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1189128048.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Rabab'ah, Samer. "INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF FREE DRAINING BASE AND SUBBASE MATERIALS UNDER FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT." Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1189128048

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2007, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Akron and OhioLINK.