Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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2006 - 20102

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Pavement Design

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    Evaluation of the AASHTO Empirical and Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Procedures Using the AASHO Road Test
    (2010) Fick, Sarah Beth; Schwartz, Charles W; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) adopted the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) in 2008 and state agencies are now transitioning from the classical empirical procedures derived from the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) Road Test. This thesis focuses on the practical implications of this transition: specifically, the changes to required pavement thickness. The AASHO Road Test pavement distress histories are compared against the MEPDG and AASHTO 1993 performance predictions using several performance measures (PSI, IRI, rutting, and cracking). No existing relationships from the literature were found to fit the AASHO Road Test recorded data so new relationships were developed to relate measured PSI to MEPDG predicted distresses. The findings, although somewhat inconclusive due to inherent difficulties in modeling the conditions at the Road Test for the MEPDG, suggest that the MEPDG predicts thinner pavement sections at higher traffic levels.
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    MECHANISTIC-EMPIRICAL DESIGN OF FLEXIBLE PAVEMENTS: A SENSITIVITY STUDY
    (2006-03-14) Carvalho, Regis Luis; Schwartz, Charles W; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Pavement structural design is a daunting task. Traffic loading is a heterogeneous mix of vehicles, axle types and loads with distributions that vary daily and over the pavement design life. Pavement materials respond to these loads in complex ways influenced by stress state and magnitude, temperature, moisture, loading rate, and other factors. Environment exposure adds further complications. It should be no wonder the profession has resorted to largely empirical methods. Developments over recent decades offered an opportunity for more rational and rigorous pavement design procedures. The latest of these accomplishments is the development of the mechanistic-empirical pavement design procedure in NCHRP Project 1-37A. This study presents a comparison of flexible pavement designs between the 1993 AASHTO guide and the NCHRP 1-37A methodology and a sensitivity analysis of the NCHRP 1-37A's input parameters. Recommendations for future studies involving the application and implementation of the new mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide concludes the study.