Impact of Climate Data Sources on Pavement Mechanistic-Empirical Design Pavement Distress Predictions

In the Pavement Mechanistic-Empirical Design (PMED) approach, several climatic factors such as air temperature, precipitation, percentage sunshine, and humidity are considered for analyzing and predicting pavement distresses. Current version of AASHTOWare (version 2.6.22) is integrated with Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Application (MERRAv2.0) database to retrieve these climatic data inputs for prediction of distresses in flexible pavements. This paper compared the predicted distresses of flexible pavements designed for different locations in the state of New Jersey using three climate data sources: (1) MERRA database from the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA); (2) MERRAv2.0, an improved version of MERRA; and (3) North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) data supplied with the AASHTOWare version 2.3.1. Predictions on permanent deformation in asphalt layer and bottom-up cracking in asphalt layer were found to be the most affected distresses due to change in climatic data source. NARR climatic data set had a lower prediction on permanent deformation in asphalt layer and bottom-up cracking compared to MERRA and MERRAv2.0. Permanent deformations in asphalt layer using MERRA and MERRAv2 were found sensitive to the bias in windspeed data that was specific to certain locations. MERRAv2 had a higher prediction value (up to 40%) for bottom-up cracking compared to that of MERRA climatic data. International Roughness Index (IRI), top-down cracking, and thermal cracking were found to be least affected due to change in climatic data source. Consequently, this could lead to assessing the requirement for recalibration of the performance prediction models for the state of New Jersey.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784484890.016
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/9780784484890
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
• Corporate Authors:

  American Society of Civil Engineers

  1801 Alexander Bell Drive
  Reston, VA  United States  20191-4400
• Authors:
  • Marath, Ashith
  • Revelli, Venkatsushanth
  • Huang, Chenchen
  • Swarna, Surya Teja
  • Goli, Arun Kumar
  • Mehta, Yusuf
• Conference:
  • International Airfield and Highway Pavements Conference 2023
  • Location: Austin Texas, United States
  • Date: 2023-7-14 to 2023-7-17
• Publication Date: 2023

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 162-172
• Monograph Title: Airfield and Highway Pavements 2023: Design, Construction, Condition Evaluation, and Management of Pavements

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Climate; Data analysis; Flexible pavements; Mechanistic-empirical pavement design; Pavement distress; Predictive models
• Identifier Terms: AASHTOWare (Software); Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Maintenance and Preservation; Pavements;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01903424
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 9780784484890
• Files: TRIS, ASCE
• Created Date: Dec 27 2023 11:25AM