Accelerated pavement testing of low-volume paved roads with geocell reinforcement.

PDFTech ReportFHWA-KS-14-14C1839Low volume roadsAccelerated testsRehabilitation (Maintenance)Test sectionsCrushed limestoneRecycled materialsGeosyntheticsHot mix paving mixturesReclaimed asphalt pavementsBase course (Pavements)RuttingLoad testsKansasKansas. Dept. of Transportation. Bureau of Materials & ResearchBortz, BrandonHossain, MustaqueKansas State University. Transportation CenterUnited States. Federal Highway AdministrationUS Transportation CollectionThe Midwest States Accelerated Pavement Testing Pooled-Fund Program, financed by the highwaydepartments of Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, and New York, has supported an accelerated pavement testing (APT) projectto study the rehabilitation of low-volume paved roads with geocells and different infill materials under real-worldtraffic on a marginal subgrade, and to simulate this type of rehabilitation numerically so that a design method can bedeveloped. To achieve this study objective, four pavement test sections were constructed at the Civil InfrastructureSystem Laboratory of Kansas State University. Three out of these four lanes had geocell-reinforced bases with threedifferent infill materials: crushed limestone, quarry by-products, and Recycled Asphalt Pavement. The fourth test lanewas the control section consisting of crushed stone base. All sections were heavily instrumented. Repeated loads (80-kN single axle) were applied using an accelerated pavement testing machine. The sections with 50-mm hot-mix asphalt(HMA) layer reached the failure criteria of 12.5-mm rut depth after 10,000 passes due to excessive stress in thesubgrade. The redesigned sections with 100-mm HMA layer carried 1.2 million passes without reaching 12.5-mmfailure rut depth. The geocells with marginal materials as infills appear to be viable in low-volume paved roadapplications