Date of Award

1-1-2009

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

First Advisor

Ronald Baus

Abstract

The Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) provides the highway pavement design community with a new program for the design of flexible and rigid pavement structures using state-of-the-art mechanistic-empirical analyses and performance predictions. This report summarizes a research effort undertaken to assist the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) with the development of an implementation strategy that will ultimately allow the SCDOT to take advantage of the advanced pavement design procedures incorporated in the MEPDG software. The MEPDG presents a major shift in pavement design strategy and full implementation of the program will require significant time and resources. An overview of the MEPDG design features, input requirements, and distress prediction models are presented. A literature review including a review of other state highway agency's MEPDG activities is presented. The purpose of this review was to gain insights into MEPDG implementation strategies undertaken or planned at other agencies. Sensitivity analyses were performed to see how typical SCDOT flexible and rigid pavement structures are influenced by changes in selected input parameters. Finally, general recommendations for an SCDOT MEPDG implementation strategy are proposed.

Rights

© 2009, Nicholas Stires

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