Practical Construction Details Used to Build an Instrumented Flexible Pavement with Geosynthetics

A flexible pavement has been constructed over poor subgrade soil consisting primarily of highly plastic clay in northeast Arkansas (the CBR strength ranged from approximately 1-2). Seventeen instrumented test sections (each 15 m in length) have been constructed on this low volume road. In addition to the controls, test sections were reinforced with four different geotextiles, two different geogrids, and one geotextile-geogrid combination at the interface of the subgrade and crushed limestone base. The test sections were heavily instrumented with structural and environmental sensors. Dynamic stresses and strains are being measured using structural sensors located in the outer wheel path of the frontage road, and the environmental instrumentation are obtaining static measurements of pore pressure, moisture content, and temperature outside of the immediate loading area. While other papers address the details of the instrumentation and test configuration in more depth, the focus of this paper is to outline issues related specifically to sensor installation, pavement construction, and cable management and protection. This paper will be a valuable tool to anyone interested in planning and constructing a full-scale, instrumented pavement test