Analytical Procedure for Flexible Airfield Pavement Rutting Incorporating Environmental Location ...

269 Pages·2011·21.73 MB·English

Analytical Procedure for Flexible Airfield Pavement Rutting
Incorporating Environmental Location and Groundwater Table Effects
by
Ramadan A.Salim

A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Science

Approved November 2011 by the
Graduate Supervisory Committee:

Claudia Zapata, Co-Chair
Matthew Witczak, Co-Chair
Kamil Kaloush

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

December 2011
ABSTRACT
The structural design of pavements in both highways and airfields becomes complex
when one considers environmental effects and ground water table variation.
Environmental effects have been incorporated on the new Mechanistic-Empirical
Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) but little has been done to incorporate environmental
effects on airfield design.
This work presents a developed code produced from this research study called
ZAPRAM, which is a mechanistically based pavement model based upon Limiting Strain
Criteria in airfield HMA pavement design procedures. ZAPRAM is capable of pavement
and airfield design analyses considering environmental effects. The program has been
coded in Visual Basic and implemented in an event-driven, user-friendly educational
computer program, which runs in Excel environment.
Several studies were conducted in order to insure the validity of the analysis as
well as the efficiency of the software. The first study yielded the minimum threshold
number of computational points the user should use at a specific depth within the
pavement system. The second study was completed to verify the correction factor for the
Odemark's transformed thickness equation. Default correction factors were included in
the code base on a large comparative study between Odemark's and MLET. A third study
was conducted to provide a comparison of flexible airfield pavement design thicknesses
derived from three widely accepted design procedures used in practice today: the Asphalt
Institute, Shell Oil, and the revised Corps of Engineering rutting failure criteria to
calculate the thickness requirements necessary for a range of design input variables. The
results of the comparative study showed that there is a significant difference between the
i
pavement thicknesses obtained from the three design procedures, with the greatest
deviation found between the Shell Oil approach and the other two criteria.
Finally, a comprehensive sensitivity study of environmental site factors and the
groundwater table depth upon flexible airfield pavement design and performance was
completed. The study used the newly revised USACE failure criteria for subgrade shear
deformation. The methodology utilized the same analytical methodology to achieve real
time environmental effects upon unbound layer modulus, as that used in the new
AASHTO MEPDG. The results of this effort showed, for the first time, the quantitative
impact of the significant effects of the climatic conditions at the design site, coupled with
the importance of the depth of the groundwater table, on the predicted design thicknesses.
Significant cost savings appear to be quite reasonable by utilizing principles of
unsaturated soil mechanics into the new airfield pavement design procedure found in
program ZAPRAM.

ii
DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to my father Mr. Abdalla Salim, my mother, my sisters,
and my brothers for their prayers, love, and support. Furthermore, I would like to
dedicate this work to Libyan martyrs who sacrificed for the freedom of the country.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to extend my sincerest appreciation and gratitude for my advisor, Dr.
Claudia Zapata, for her constant encouragement, technical guidance throughout the
Master Program. I thank Dr. Matthew W. Witczak for the intensive technical discussions
and suggestions during this research work. I would like to acknowledge the help of
Waleed Zeiada and Daniel Rosenbalm during my studies. Special thanks are due to Dr.
Kamil Kaloush for his useful opinions and discussions during this research work.
I am grateful to all my friends and colleagues of the Advanced Pavement Group,
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Arizona State University.
Finally, I am forever indebted to all my family members for their constant
encouragement and support in every moment of my life.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………...viii
LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………..xiii
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Scope of Work ................................................................................................. 3
1.3 Research Objectives ......................................................................................... 4
1.4 Organization .................................................................................................... 5
2 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................ 7
2.1 Introduction: .................................................................................................... 7
2.2 ZAPMEDACA Software ................................................................................. 8
2.3 ZAPMEDACA Software Modules ................................................................... 8
3 ENHANCEMENT OF ZAPMEDACA SOFTWARE ............................................. 29
3.1 ZAPRAM Software ....................................................................................... 29
3.2 ZAPRAM Software Modules ......................................................................... 30
4 EVALUATION OF OPTIMAL DIFFERENTIAL AREAS IN NUMERICAL
INTEGRATION PROCESS ................................................................................. 72
4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 72
4.2 Selected Aircraft: ........................................................................................... 73
4.3 Pavement System Utilized: ............................................................................. 75
4.4 Plan Study: .................................................................................................... 75
4.5 The Study for Deep Depth (Z=150.00 in). ....................................................... 76
4.6 The Study for Mid Depth (Z=79.57 in). .......................................................... 87
v
CHAPTER Page
4.7 The Study for Shallow Depth (Z=20.00 in). .................................................... 93
4.8 Impact of the Computed Depth on Number of Computational Points................ 99
4.9 Conclusions of the Study: ............................................................................. 105
5 STRESS AND STRAIN ANALYSIS IN ZAPRAM .............................................. 108
5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 108
5.2 Corroborate the Validity of the Program ....................................................... 108
5.3 The Correction Factor “f”: ............................................................................ 121
5.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 165
6 COMPARISON OF AIRFIELD FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT DESIGN THICKNESS
BASED UPON DIFFERING AGENCY LIMITING SUBGRADE STRAIN
CRITERIA ........................................................................................................ 166
6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 166
6.2 Objective ..................................................................................................... 166
6.3 Experimental Factorial ................................................................................. 167
6.4 Results and Analysis .................................................................................... 169
6.5 Influence of Design Factors .......................................................................... 171
6.6 Comparison of Criteria ................................................................................. 173
6.7 Statistical Summary of Agency Pavement Design ......................................... 175
6.8 Conclusions ................................................................................................. 178
7 IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SITE LOCATION AND GROUNDWATER
TABLE DEPTH ON THE THICKNESS OF FLEXIBLE AIRFIELD PAVEMENTS
..................... ..................................................................................................... 180
7.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 180
7.2 Objective ...........................................................................................................
vi
CHAPTER Page
7.3 Background of Environmental Effects .......................................................... 182
7.4 Experimental Matrix .................................................................................... 183
7.5 Pavement Structure ...................................................................................... 186
7.6 Subgrade Soil Modulus Variations................................................................ 186
7.7 Results and Analysis .................................................................................... 188
7.8 Discussion of Results ................................................................................... 191
7.9 Summary and Conclusions ........................................................................... 195
8 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS .................................................................. 197
8.1 Summary ..................................................................................................... 197
8.2 Conclusions ................................................................................................. 199
9 RECOMMENDATIONS AND FUTURE STUDIES .......................................... 207
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................... 212
APPENDIX
A USER’S OPERATIONAL GUIDE ...................................................................... 215
A.1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 216
A.2 Main Screen: ............................................................................................... 218
A.3 Load Configuration Module: ........................................................................ 219
A.4 Pavement Structure Module ......................................................................... 226
A.5 Traffic Analysis ........................................................................................... 228
A.6 Environmental Effects Module ..................................................................... 233
A.7 Stress Analysis Module ................................................................................ 235
A.8 Design Rutting Criteria ................................................................................ 238

vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
2-1 Mean Possible Duration of Sunlight – Northern Hemisphere (Day-Length Correction
Factor in Units of 30 Days of 12 Hours) ................................................................14
2-2 Mean Possible Duration of Sunlight – Southern Hemisphere (Day-Length Correction
Factor in Units of 30 Days of 12 Hours) ................................................................15
2-3 Constants for TMI-P200 Model for Base Coarse-grained Materials .........................16
2-4 Regression Constants for TMI-P200/wPI Model for Subbase/Subgrade Materials ...17
3-1 Listing of all the Specific Aircraft Types that Include d in the Library .....................31
3-2 The Currently Available Cities that are Included in the City Library ........................36
3-3 Input Type Gear Arrangement .................................................................................37
3-4 The Coordinate of Point of Interest for Single Tire Aircraft .....................................38
3-5 The Coordinate of Point of Interest for Dual Tire Aircraft .......................................39
3-6 The Coordinate of Point of Interest for Single Tandem Aircraft ...............................39
3-7 The Coordinate of Point of Interest for Dual Tandem Aircraft .................................40
3-8 The Coordinate of Point of Interest for Tri-Tandem Aircraft ....................................41
3-9 The Coordinate of Point of Interest for C5A Aircraft ...............................................43
3-10 The Coordinate of Point of Interest for Twin-Twin Aircraft ...................................45
3-11 The Coordinate of Point of Interest for A-380 Aircraft ..........................................46
3-12 The Coordinate of Point of Interest for B-747Aircraft............................................48
3-13 Shell Oil Limiting Vertical Strain Criteria (Airfields) ............................................54
3-14 The Limiting Vertical Strain Criteria Summary (MS-11) Airfield ..........................56
3-15 Limiting Vertical Strain Criteria (MS-11 Airfield) .................................................58
3-16 Vertical Subgrade Strain Computations by Moduli ................................................60
3-17 USACE-WES Limiting Vertical Strain Criteria (β-Airfield) ..................................62
viii
Table Page
4-1 Properties of Layer Materials in Pavement Structure ...............................................75
4-2 Analysis for Circular Tire Imprint Shape ( Z=150 in) ..............................................77
4-3 Analysis for Elliptical Tire Imprint Shape (Z=150 in) ..............................................80
4-4 Analysis for Elliptical Tire Imprint Shape (Z=150 in) - 360/dϕ is Integer ................83
4-5 Analysis for Elliptical Tire Imprint Shape (Z=150 in) - 360/dϕ Is Integer and Even .85
4-6 Analysis for Circular Tire Imprint Shape (Z=79.57 in) ............................................88
4-7 Analysis for Elliptical Tire Imprint Shape (Z=79.57 in) ...........................................91
4-8 Analysis for Circular Tire Imprint Shape (Z=20 in) .................................................94
4-9 Analysis for Elliptical Tire Imprint Shape (Z=20 in)................................................97
4-10 Analysis for Circular Tire Imprint Shape ............................................................. 100
4-11 Analysis for Elliptical Tire Imprint Shape ........................................................... 103
5-1 JULEA (1 Layer) and ZAPRAM Comparison for Boeing B737-600 ..................... 113
5-2 JULEA (1 Layer) and ZAPRAM Comparison for Airbus INDUSTRIE A300-C4 .. 113
5-3 JULEA (3 Layers) and ZAPRAM Comparison for Boeing B737-600 .................... 118
5-4 JULEA (3 Layers) and ZAPRAM Comparison for Airbus INDUSTRIE A300-C4 . 118
5-5 JULEA (3 Layers) and ZAPRAM comparison for the 1st pavement system with
different correction factors. ................................................................................. 122
5-6 JULEA (3 Layers) and ZAPRAM comparison for the 2nd pavement system with
different correction factors. ................................................................................. 122
5-7 JULEA (3 Layers) and ZAPRAM comparison for the 3rd pavement system with
different correction factors. ................................................................................. 123
5-8 JULEA (3 Layers) and ZAPRAM comparison for the 4th pavement system with
different correction factors. ................................................................................. 123

ix