Numerical Modeling for Sealed and Unsealed Pavement Drainage Performance: Case Study on US-24
This study focused on rainfall infiltration into concrete pavement through sealed/unsealed joint and water movement in the permeable base by means of numerical simulation. The pavement examined was a newly constructed concrete pavement section with sealing and unsealing concrete pavement on different types of base on US-24, Indiana. In order to provide highway engineers with a methodology to analyze water migration and drainage into pavement systems, a finite-element model of the pavement was developed and a number of numerical analyses were performed to evaluate the movement of water in the pavement using the SEEP/W 20012 in the GEO-SLOPE program. Unsaturated flow analysis was used to obtain the flow path of the infiltrated water and flux quantity through a cross-sectional area in the pavement. The performance of the underdrain system was evaluated considering various levels of precipitation, permeable base and underdrain, and subgrade Soil–Water Characteristic Curves (SWCC). The numerical modeling performance data from the sections constructed with variable drainage designs indicated that the untreated permeable subbase drainage designs were performing as well as the treated base. The drainage capacity of the subbase layer, constructed with an open graded base course, appeared to be sufficient to handle all of the infiltrated water due to sealing/unsealing joint. In addition, from the moisture content estimations for the subgrade from GPR, it appears that the moisture content was not statistically significant different between all the sections. This indicated the unsealed concrete pavement could be an alternative construction of jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP).
-
Supplemental Notes:
- This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AFS60 Standing Committee on Subsurface Drainage. Alternate title: Numerical Modeling for Sealed and Unsealed Pavement Drainage Performance: A Case Study on US-24.
-
Corporate Authors:
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC United States 20001 -
Authors:
- Ji, Richard Yigong
- Liu, Kun
- Nantung, Tommy
- Mukhopadhyay, Sayanti
- Hastak, Makarand
-
Conference:
- Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
- Location: Washington DC, United States
- Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
- Date: 2016
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Digital/other
- Features: Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 22p
- Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Base course (Pavements); Case studies; Concrete pavements; Drainage; Finite element method; Joint sealing; Permeability; Subdrains; Subgrade (Pavements)
- Uncontrolled Terms: Soil water characteristic curve
- Geographic Terms: Indiana
- Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Pavements; I22: Design of Pavements, Railways and Guideways;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01587329
- Record Type: Publication
- Report/Paper Numbers: 16-2757
- Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
- Created Date: Jan 20 2016 12:41PM