Rutting Modelling of Pavement Structures, validation against Heavy Vehicle Simulator tests

This thesis presents the analysis of three asphalt paving structures: SE14, SE18 and SE20, using the Mechanistic-Empirical (M-E) approach. The structures were tested in full scale test pits at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) and their layers were instrumented to assess the essential material parameters required to perform flexible pavement designs, M-E approach and life cycle estimation. The two principal testing methods were the heavy vehicle simulator (HVS) and falling weight deflectometer (FWD). The leading processes used to obtain the main material parameters of each layer of the structure are the backcalculation and the comparison between measurements and calculations. The success of the methodology occurs when all graphs with measurements and calculations agree with each other. The repeated load triaxial (RLT) test was not available to estimate the material parameters of these three structures. This thesis shows that using FWD and HVS tests can provide reasonably accurate results. Additionally, two models are analysed and backcalculated to estimate the main parameters of the permanent deformation (PD). The two models are for unbound materials (base, subbase, subgrade) and the asphalt concrete layer. Reliable values for main parameters of the three asphalt pavement structures (stiffness, resilient modules, k1 and k2) where backcalculated and the two predicting models for the degradation as a function of time show promising results when comparing mechanistic calculations and full scale test structure measurements