TOWARDS COMPUTATION TOOLS FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF RUTTING OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENTS

Rutting prediction of flexible pavements, based on the calculation of permanent deformations within bituminous or/and unbound granular materials, is still a challenging task for pavement engineers. Such a work is under development at LCPC. It is based on the consideration of three time scales. The focus in this paper is given on one hand on the general methodology for the modelling of rutting and on the other hand on the first step of the method, based on the finite element computation of the resilient behaviour of pavements under moving loads. Special attention is given at this stage on the passage from lab to field data. This includes the identification of constitutive laws of pavement materials in the lab, the modelling of field situation and the validation from field data. Two cases of application are given. For the covering abstract see ITRD E119486.