Evaluation of Design Procedure and Performance of Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement According to AASHTO Design Methods

The Guide for Design of Pavement Structures (AASHTO 86/93) and Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) are two common methods to design continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in the USA. The AASHTO 86/93 is based on empirical equations to assess the performance of highway pavements under moving loads with known magnitude and frequency derived from experiments on AASHTO road tests. The MEPDG is a pavement design method based on engineering mechanics and numerical models for analysis. It functions by incorporating additional attributes such as environment, material properties, and vehicle axle load to predict pavement performance and degradation at the selected reliability level over the intended performance period. In order to evaluate the CRCP design procedure and performance, crack width (CW) and crack spacing (CS) from five examined test tracks in Europe with different climate condition, base layer, geometry, and materials were collected in this paper and compared with predicted distresses as well as CW and CS from AASHTO 86/93 and MEPDG design methods. The results show that the interactions between geometrics, material properties, traffic, and environmental conditions in the MEPDG method are more pronounced than in the AASHTO 86/93 and the prediction of CS and CW based on MEPDG matched closely with the recorded data from sections.