U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Highway Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20590
202-366-4000
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 |
Publication Number: FHWA-RD-99-193 Date: November 1999 |
Publication Number: FHWA-RD-99-193 Date: November 1999 |
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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
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.