Pavement ME Rehabilitation Design Protocols for MDOT Implementation

Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) is undergoing the process to fully implement Mechanistic-Empirical (ME) pavement design per the AASHTO Mechanistic- Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) and its associated software, AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design (Pavement ME). MDOT has implemented ME for new/reconstruction designs, but not yet for rehabilitation designs. For pavement rehabilitation design, MDOT is using the AASHTO 1993 (A93) method, which has proven to be an important tool for several decades; however, its empirical approach limits its effectiveness as a modern pavement design method, as compared to Pavement ME that utilizes site-specific conditions such as traffic, climate, and existing pavement conditions, in creating the final design. ME rehabilitation pavement design is more complex and requires characterization of existing materials and their thicknesses. This is a difficult task since related MDOT records may be incomplete or missing altogether. Furthermore, past projects used various mix types that are no longer used or have adjusted their requirements (such as air voids or gradations). Therefore, due to these added complexities, it is difficult to standardize or provide guidelines related to Pavement ME pavement rehabilitation design without extensive investigation for which the Department cannot practically facilitate for every project. This research project would address these difficulties by providing recommendations for how to most accurately model rehabilitation fixes within Pavement ME, characterize existing materials given the standard available project information and streamline the process so that MDOT can use Pavement ME for rehabilitation design decisions. This project will further add to the findings from MDOT report, RC-1594 “Preparation for Implementation of the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide in Michigan Part 2: Evaluation of Rehabilitation Fixes” by detailing the MDOT pavement design protocols necessary for Pavement ME design and explicitly denoting the requirements for each MDOT rehabilitation design fix type. This will be the basis for MDOT to implement Pavement ME in designing rehabilitation projects.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Sponsor Organizations:

  Michigan Department of Transportation

  Van Wagoner Building
  425 W. Ottawa Street
  Lansing, MI  United States  48909
• Performing Organizations:

  Michigan State University, East Lansing

  Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
  Institute for Community Development
  East Lansing, MI  United States  48824-1226
• Principal Investigators:

  Haider, Syed

• Start Date: 20230401
• Expected Completion Date: 20250331
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Mechanistic-empirical pavement design; Rehabilitation
• Identifier Terms: Michigan Department of Transportation
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Pavements;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01892213
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Michigan Department of Transportation
• Files: RIP, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Sep 1 2023 12:40PM