Mechanistic-Empirical Design Concepts for Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements in Illinois

The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) currently has an existing jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP) design method based on mechanistic-empirical (M-E) principles. The objective of this research was to provide IDOT with an improved design process for JPCP based on new research findings over the past 15 years. Existing JPCP methods such as the Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) were reviewed. Two conclusions from the review of current design methods were that a geographic specific temperature and site specific load spectra analysis were not necessary at this time to produce reasonable concrete thicknesses. A single climate zone and the ESAL concept to represent mixed truck traffic are therefore still recommended for the state of Illinois based on current rigid pavement design technology. A new mechanistic-empirical design process was proposed based on the principles of the current IDOT method. This new design process was implemented into a spreadsheet program to allow for rapid plotting of design charts and also to enable pavement engineers to readily conduct special design studies that may be warranted when certain inputs fall outside the recommended values used to plot the new design charts. The new design inputs are pavement layer and slab geometry, material layer properties, concrete strength, ESALs, slab-base interface bond condition, temperature curling analysis type, shoulder type, and a reliability-based fatigue algorithm derived from laboratory beam tests. Due to the limited JPCP performance data, the recommended design process did not use a field calibrated damage-to-cracking model but was verified against the existing JPCP method.ICT R57published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe