Effect of Pavement Type on Fuel Consumption and Emissions
This paper investigated the effect of pavement type on fuel consumption. Significant differences in fuel consumption and emissions rates were observed on rigid versus flexible pavement surfaces. The difference in rates could result in substantial differences in the total energy consumption and carbon footprints during the design life of roadway facilities and should be considered in life cycle cost analyses of alternative designs. Fuel consumption measurements were made on multiple runs by driving an instrumented van over two new pavement sections: a rigid and a flexible section of two parallel city streets. The two sections were both tangent sections with identical gradients and similar roughness. All other factors that could influence fuel consumption were either controlled or kept the same during the test runs. Two different driving modes were also performed: constant speed of 30 mph and acceleration from zero to 30 mph at a rate of 3 mph/second. All tests were conducted under dry pavement conditions with a four factor-level experimental design—two pavement types and two driving modes. The differences in fuel consumption rates were determined to be statistically significant at 10% level of significance for the constant speed runs with the rate for the rigid section being lower. Under the acceleration mode, while the rigid pavement runs again showed lower rates, the differences were not statistically significant. The total fuel consumption amounts were then used to estimate the total annual CO2 productions in the Dallas-Fort Worth region in Texas under each pavement surface type. Under similar urban driving conditions (30 mph), the rigid pavement results in a total fuel savings of about 177 million gallons and a reduction of approximately 0.62 million metric tons of CO2 per annum.
- Record URL:
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Corporate Authors:
Iowa State University, Ames
Institute for Transportation
Ames, IA United States 50010-8664 -
Authors:
- Sumitsawan, Palinee
- Ardekani, Siamak A
- Romanoschi, Stefan A
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Conference:
- 2009 Mid-Continent Transportation Research Symposium
- Location: Ames Iowa, United States
- Date: 2009-8-20 to 2009-8-21
- Publication Date: 2009
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Web
- Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 12p
- Monograph Title: Proceedings of the 2009 Mid-Continent Transportation Research Symposium
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Environmental impacts; Exhaust gases; Flexible pavements; Fuel consumption; Pavement design; Pollutants; Rigid pavements
- Uncontrolled Terms: Ecological footprinting
- Subject Areas: Environment; Highways; I15: Environment;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01139734
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS
- Created Date: Sep 18 2009 7:07AM