Pavement Service Life - rev 2.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation's (WisDOT’s) Bureau of Highway Construction is working on a study of pavement service life. The RD&T Program was asked to look at ways in which service life is defined and understood in other state transportation agencies, particularly neighboring states with climates similar to Wisconsin, and with an eye cast specifically at parameters of time, traffic or truck loads, pavement types, and condition indicator threshold levels. There have been various efforts around the country to mine pavement management or historical data for average real pavement service life figures, often broken down into broad categories of flexible or bituminous pavements and rigid or concrete cement pavements. Rather than focusing on detailed actual service life figures, however, most of this work focuses on adapting averages for use in determining design life or life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) projections. Because of this lack of real service life studies, a survey of AASHTO Research Advisory Committee members around the country was conducted. Survey responses indicated that service life typically is understood as a measure in years from construction to first rehabilitation or overlay, and as no verifiable actual (rather than estimated) service life tracking has been conducted for periods of 20 or more years, this necessarily entails calculations and estimates. Occasionally service life may be measured merely in terms of performance indicators or condition indices, but rarely in traffic loading terms such as equivalent single axle loads or any other measure. This report looks first at the survey results, then at specific states, starting with those with climates similar to Wisconsin, and moving then to other states. It also looks briefly at Australian research and at work reported by the American Concrete Pavement Association and the Asphalt Pavement Alliance. In each of these sections definitions of service life and the pavement type categories to which the agency applies the term are highlighted.

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• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/29467
• Corporate Authors:

  CTC & Associates LLC

  4805 Goldfinch Drive
  Madison, WI  United States  53714

  Wisconsin Department of Transportation

  Research and Library Services, 4802 Sheboygan Avenue
  Madison, WI  United States  53707
• Publication Date: 2004-9-8

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Pagination: 61p
• Serial:
  • Transportation Synthesis Report
  • Publisher: Wisconsin Department of Transportation

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Definitions; Pavements; Service life; State departments of transportation; Surveys
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Pavements; I22: Design of Pavements, Railways and Guideways;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01584328
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: NTL, TRIS, ATRI, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Dec 30 2015 4:08PM