U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
202-366-4000


Skip to content
Facebook iconYouTube iconTwitter iconFlickr iconLinkedInInstagram

Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology
Coordinating, Developing, and Delivering Highway Transportation Innovations

 
REPORT
This report is an archived publication and may contain dated technical, contact, and link information
Back to Publication List        
Publication Number:  FHWA-RD-99-193    Date:  November 1999
Publication Number: FHWA-RD-99-193
Date: November 1999

 

Common Characteristics of Good and Poorly Performing AC Pavements

PDF Version (13.0 MB)

PDF files can be viewed with the Acrobat® Reader®

FOREWORD

The request was simple: "Tell us what works." This report documents Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) analysis conducted to answer that question for asphalt concrete (AC) pavements. Performance measures considered included rutting, fatigue cracking, transverse cracking, and roughness.

The findings drawn from this analysis were limited. As a consequence, this repert will not by formally published. It is being submitted to NTIS as a public record of the work performed.

T. Paul Teng, P.E.
Director
Office of Infrastructure
Research and Development

Abstract

This report documents the analysis and findings of a study to identify the site conditions and design/construction features of flexible pavements that lead to good performance and those that lead to poor performance. Data from the Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) test sections were used along with findings from previous and ongoing analyses of LTPP data. As there were no known criteria for identifying performance expectations over time as good, normal or poor, a group of experts was convened to establish criteria. Separate critera were developed for performance in roughness (IRI), rutting, transverse cracking, and fatique cracking.

This work attempted tO identify the pavement characteristics that have a significant impact on the occurrence of these four distress types. In many cases, definitive conclusions could not be drawn, because the effects of the different characteristics are interactive. More in-depth analysis is needed to sort out these interactive effects.

 

 

Federal Highway Administration | 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE | Washington, DC 20590 | 202-366-4000
Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center | 6300 Georgetown Pike | McLean, VA | 22101