Improvement of fatigue and rutting performance with different base treatments

Abstract

Pavement performance is a key parameter that governs the serviceability of road networks. This performance is heavily influenced by the pavement construction materials such as asphalt binder and aggregates. The use of proper aggregates results in enhanced structural stability and greater long-term performance of pavements. However, due to the rapid construction of roads around the world, aggregates used in the base layer are often treated with various stabilizing agents such as lime and cement. In this study, various mechanistic analyses are performed using the 3-D Move Analysis software to study their effect on rutting and fatigue resistance performance. The analysis showed that the use of stabilizing agents increased the pavement performance up to 96% for fatigue cracking and 34.4% for rutting compared to untreated base layers. The cost-effectiveness analysis also showed that the use of stabilizing agents would reduce the long-term cost of pavement as compared to untreated bases.