#Rigid pavement design software manual
#Rigid pavement design software software

Prestressed concrete pavements have also been used in the construction of highways however, they are not as common as the other three. CRCPРІР‚Сџs solely rely on continuous reinforcing steel to hold the pavementРІР‚Сџs natural transverse cracks together. At transverse joints, dowel bars are typically placed to assist with transferring the load of the vehicle across the cracking. High temperatures and moisture stresses within the pavement creates cracking, which the reinforcing steel holds tightly together. JRCPРІР‚Сџs are constructed with both contraction joints and reinforcing steel to control the cracking of the pavement. These pavements do not use any reinforcing steel. JPCPРІР‚Сџs are constructed with contraction joints which direct the natural cracking of the pavement. Three main types of concrete pavements commonly used are Jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP), jointed reinforced concrete pavement (JRCP), and continuously reinforced concrete pavements (CRCP). Joint spacing is determined by the slab panel dimensions. In addition to the slab panels, temperature reinforcements must be designed to control cracking behavior in the slab.

The concrete slab is constructed according to a designed choice of plan dimensions for the slab panels, directly influencing the intensity of thermal stresses occurring within the pavement. Rigid pavements are generally constructed in three layers - a prepared subgrade, base or subbase, and a concrete slab. Due to the relatively low tensile strength of concrete, thermal stresses are extremely important to the design considerations ofР’В rigid pavements. As pavement design has progressed, many highway engineers have noted that thermally induced stresses in rigid pavements can be just as intense as those imposed by wheel loadings. In addition to design criteria such as traffic loadings, tensile stresses due to thermal energy must also be taken into consideration. Fatigue failure is common among major roads because a typical highway will experience millions of wheel passes throughout its service life. One major design consideration of rigid pavements is reducing fatigue failure due to the repeated stresses of traffic. The typical designed service life of a rigid pavement is between 30 and 40 years, lasting about twice as long as a flexible pavement.

Rigid pavements must be designed to endure frequently repeated traffic loadings. The reason for its popularity is due to its availability and the economy. Portland cement concrete (PCC) is the most common material used in the construction of rigid pavement slabs. Offering high quality riding surfaces for safe vehicular travel, they function as structural layers to distribute vehicular wheel loads in such a manner that the induced stresses transmitted to the subgrade soil are of acceptable magnitudes. Like flexible pavements, rigid highway pavements are designed as all-weather, long-lasting structures to serve modern day high-speed traffic. In addition, they commonly serve as heavy-duty industrial floor slabs, port and harbor yard pavements, and heavy-vehicle park or terminal pavements. It can also be used to perform loss of support analysis and load transfer efficiency (LTE) calculations.Rigid pavements are generally used in constructing airports and major highways, such as those in the interstate highway system. The tool is capable of analyzing raw deflection data files obtained from Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) testing devices, backcalculating in-place elastic layer moduli for flexible and rigid pavements and generating inputs for performing rehabilitation design using Pavement ME.

#Rigid pavement design software software

The Pavement ME Deflection Data Analysis and Backcalculation Tools is a standalone software program that can be used to generate backcalculation inputs to the AASHTO Pavement ME Design software for rehabilitation design. ME Design is a production-ready software tool to support the day-to-day pavement design functions of public and private pavement engineers.

#Rigid pavement design software manual

ME Design supports AASHTO's Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide, Interim Edition: A Manual of Practice. ***Р”Р„ASHTOWare Pavement ME Design is the next generation of AASHTOWareР’В® pavement design software, which builds upon the mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide, and expands and improves the features in the accompanying prototype computational software. ***AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design v2.6 is now available. ***AASHTOWare Backcalculation Tools v1.1.5 is now available.