Roads/Highways

Concrete Overlay on Asphalt Pilot Project at Woodland SR 113: Construction

Angel Mateos
Harvey, John
McMillan, Miguel Angel
Wu, Rongzong
Paniagua, Fabian
Paniagua, Julio
Cisneros, Jessica
2021

This report documents the design and construction of a concrete overlay on asphalt (COA) pavement on State Route 113 in Woodland, California, one of the first COA projects in the Caltrans road network. The project site extended over approximately 4 mi. of a two-lane secondary road. The concrete slabs were a half-lane wide (6×6 ft.) and 6 in. thick. The transverse joints were undoweled, but tie bars were installed at all the longitudinal joints. The outside slabs were 2 ft. wider than the interior slabs to provide a concrete shoulder. The project included a section with newly placed,...

Pavement ME Evaluation of the NCHRP 1-61 Thin Concrete Overlay on Asphalt Sections

Angel Mateos
Harvey, John
2022

The thin concrete overlay on asphalt (COA) longitudinal cracking model of Pavement ME was calibrated with empirical data from COA sections with half-lane width slabs in Minnesota, Illinois, and Colorado. The NCHRP Project 1-61 has considerably expanded the range of climatic conditions for which reliable performance data are available by adding projects from Iowa, Kansas, and Philadelphia (in addition to Minnesota, Illinois, and Colorado). This technical memorandum assesses Pavement ME predictions based on the longitudinal cracking measured on 13 COA sections with half-lane width slabs...

Pavement ME Sensitivity Analysis (Version 2.5.3)

Saboori, Ashkan
Harvey, John
Lea, Jeremy
Wu, Rongzong
Angel Mateos
2021

The Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) is a comprehensive tool developed in 2002 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) to analyze and design both flexible and rigid pavements. The models in the MEPDG are implemented in software called Pavement ME, a program calibrated using Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) sections from throughout the United States, including some from California. The MEPDG recommends that nationally calibrated models be validated using local data, and if necessary, recalibrated, which makes sense when...

Mechanisms of Asphalt Cracking and Concrete-Asphalt Debonding in Concrete Overlay on Asphalt Pavements

Angel Mateos
McMillan, Miguel Angel
Harvey, John T.
Paniagua, Fabian
Wu, Rongzong
2021

The research presented in this paper identifies several distress mechanisms that asphalt base and concrete-asphalt interphase may experience in concrete overlay on asphalt (COA) pavements. The identification of the distresses is based on visual examination of cores extracted from a relatively large pool of COA test sections in a dry climate. Concrete-asphalt debonding was particularly severe at the transverse joints of 3.6 m (12ft) long slabs as compared with 1.8 m (6 ft) long slabs. Transverse joint propagation into the asphalt base was observed in the shorter slabs. The debonding and the...

Early-Age and Premature Cracking in Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements: Literature Review

Angel Mateos
Harvey, John
2021

This technical memorandum includes a literature review about the factors that may lead to early-age and premature cracking of jointed plain concrete pavements (JPCPs). The review shows that many factors are involved and that many different circumstances can result in these types of cracking. In most of the cases reported in the literature, the early-age and premature cracking were related to poor construction practices. The early-age cracking of JPCP has already received considerable attention, and there is agreement regarding the mechanisms that result in this type of cracking and about...

Updates to CalME and Calibration of Cracking Models

Wu, Rongzong
Harvey, John
Lea, Jeremy
Angel Mateos
Yang, Shou
Hernandez, Noe
2021

The CalME flexible pavement simulation and design software program has been completely recoded as a web-based application calledCalME 3.0. CalME 3.0 retains the same incremental-recursive damage approach and the same forms for damage models and transferfunctions as CalME 2.0, which was validated using accelerated pavement testing data from Heavy Vehicle Simulator (HVS) test sectionsand the WesTrack experiment.The following enhancements and additions are all included in the revised program. First, the old software’s fatigue cracking transferfunctions for hot mix asphalt (HMA) on aggregate...

Calibration of a Mechanistic-Empirical Cracking Model Using Network-Level Field Data

Wu, Rongzong
Harvey, John
Lea, Jeremy
Jones, David
Louw, Stephanus
Angel Mateos
Hernandez-Fernandez, Noe
Shrestha, Raghubar
Holland, Joe
2022

At the core of a mechanistic-empirical (M-E) pavement design method is a collection of performance models that each predicts the development of a specific pavement distress, such as fatigue cracking and surface rutting. Each model has both mechanistic and empirical parts. The empirical parts need to be calibrated to remove bias and increase prediction accuracy. This process has traditionally been conducted with small numbers of field sections for which materials may or may not have been sampled and tested. This paper presents a new calibration approach that uses network-level field data...

The Impact of Truck Platooning Action on Asphalt Pavement: A Parametric Study

Leiva-Padilla, Paulina
Blanc, Juliette
Hammoum, Ferhat
Salgado, Aitor
Chailleux, Emmanuel
Angel Mateos
Hornych, Pierre
2023

Partially/fully self-driven trucks in platoon configurations promise to increase transport efficiency, reduce fuel consumption/gas emissions and improve road safety through the use of connectivity technologies and automated driving support systems. However, truck platooning means the introduction of new types of loads on pavements which are characterised by: multiple loads, generated by the multi-axle configurations of the different trucks forming the platoon, traffic channelisation by the reduction of the lateral deviation of the trucks, and reduced inter-truck time gaps, which may reduce...

Development of Caltrans Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement Design Catalog Tables Using Pavement ME

Angel Mateos
Saboori, Ashkan
Lea, Jeremy
Harvey, John
2022

This report summarizes the work conducted to develop the jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP) tables of the new Caltrans HighwayDesign Manual (HDM) Rigid Pavement Design Catalog. The tables consider the different pavement structures that are expected toperform properly on the Caltrans road network. The tables were developed using Pavement ME (version 2.5.5) with the nationallycalibrated transverse cracking model. Pavement ME inputs were determined by considering the state’s climate, traffic, materials, andconstruction practices. A design life of 40 years, 10% target transverse cracking,...

RAP and RAS in HMA Pilot Project on ELD 49: Material Testing, Observations, and Findings

Harvey, John
Buscheck, Jeff
Brotschi, Julian
Rahman, Mohammad
Angel Mateos
Jones, David
2023

A pilot project for the inclusion of recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) in hot mix asphalt (HMA) was built on State Route 49 in El Dorado County in November 2021. Four mixes were included in short test sections: (1) a control mix with no RAS or recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), (2) a typically used mix with 10% RAP that was also used for construction of the rest of the overall project, (3) a mix with 3% RAS, and (4) a mix with 10% RAP and 3% RAS. This technical memorandum presents the laboratory test results from plant mix produced for job mix formula (JMF) verification and from two quality...