RE-EVALUATION OF KENTUCKY FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT DESIGN CRITERION

PRIOR TO 1948, THE CRITERION IN KENTUCKY FOR DESIGNING THE THICKNESS OF BITUMINOUS PAVEMENTS WAS BASED UPON A MODIFIED LABORATORY CBR AND THE 1942 CURVES DEVELOPED BY THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS. IN 1948, THE MATERIALS RESEARCH LABORATORY REPORTED: AN INVESTIGATION OF FIELD AND LABORATORY METHODS FOR EVALUATING SUBGRADE SUPPORT IN THE DESIGN OF HIGHWAY FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT. INCLUDED IN THAT REPORT AS A RECOMMENDED METHOD OF THICKNESS DESIGN FOR USE IN KENTUCKY WAS A SET OF CURVES BASED UPON AN EMPIRICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MINIMUM LABORATORY CBR AND OBSERVED PAVEMENT PERFORMANCE. THESE FIVE CURVES ACCOUNTED FOR TRAFFIC GROUPS UP TO 10,000,000 EWL'S. SINCE THAT TIME SIX ADDITIONAL CURVES HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE DESIGN CHARTS FOR EWL GROUPS UP TO 320,000,000. THESE ADDITIONAL CURVES WERE DETERMINED BY EXTRAPOLATION OF THE RESULTS FROM THE 1948 STUDY. EARLY IN 1957, AN EVALUATION OF THE DESIGN METHOD WAS UNDERTAKEN. THE BASIS FOR THIS RE-EVALUATION WAS A STATISTICAL COMPARISON OF ACTUAL PAVEMENT PERFORMANCES WITH THE DESIGNED LIFE AS ANTICIPATED OR PREDICTED BY THE DESIGN CURVES CURRENTLY IN USE. ON THIS BASIS, PROJECTS WERE SELECTED, DESIGN RECORDS ASSEMBLED, PERFORMANCES SURVEYED, AND THE DATA ANALYZED. SELECTED PAVEMENTS WHICH HAD BEEN DESIGNED BY THE METHOD DEVELOPED IN THE 1948 STUDY WERE CHECKED FOR PERFORMANCE BY VISUAL SURVEY, BY ROUGHNESS MEASUREMENTS, BY MEASUREMENTS OF RUTTING, BY MEASUREMENTS OF LOADED-DEFLECTION WITH THE BENKELMAN BEAM, AND BY OPENING PAVEMENTS FOR OBSERVATION AND SAMPLING. FLEXIBLE BASE TYPES STUDIED INCLUDED WATERBOUND MACADAM, BITUMINOUS CONCRETE, GRANULAR DENSE-GRADED AGGREGATE AND COMBINATIONS. LABORATORY EVALUATION ON BASIS OF BEARING TESTS WERE MADE. SOME CONCLUSIONS WERE: (1) THE VISUAL SURVEY ESTABLISHED A RANGE OF PERFORMANCE, (2) ROAD ROUGHNESS MEASUREMENTS WERE RELATED TO CBR BUT NO ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO DRAW DESIGN CURVES FROM THIS DATA SINCE IT COULD BE GREATLY AFFECTED BY FACTORS NOT RELATED TO STRUCTURAL DESIGN, (3) PAVEMENTS OPENED FOR INSPECTION REVEALED PERMANENT DEFORMATION IN THE UPPER LAYERS OF THE SYSTEM AS WELL AS INTRUSIONS OF SUBGRADE IN WATERBOUND BASE COURSES, AND (4) AN ALTERNATE METHOD OF DESIGN BASED ON LIMITING DEFLECTION UNDER LOAD WAS DEVELOPED FROM THE BENKELMAN BEAM MEASUREMENTS. CURVES DRAWN FROM THIS DATA INDICATE A NEED FOR A SLIGHTLY GREATER THICKNESS THAN PROVIDED BY THE 1948 CURVES. /AUTHOR/