THE PREDICTION OF PERMANENT DEFORMATION IN ASPHALT PAVEMENTS

Increasing interest in the development of calculation procedures to quantify permanent deformation in asphalt pavements due to wheel loading has generated several papers over the years. Many of these have discussed material characteristics, some have considered the theoretical framework, others have simply reported field observations, but few have brought all these aspects together except in state-of-the-art reviews. This work summarizes the experience gained during the first phase of an ongoing project that is involved with theory, materials characterization, and pavement experiments. The basic theoretical framework used involves elastic analysis of the structure to determine stress distribution and then the use of materials testing data that relates permanent strain to stress conditions so that permanent in situ vertical strains down through the structure can be summed to give the surface deformation.