DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF RESURFACING ALTERNATIVES FOR PAVEMENT REHABILITATION. SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF ASPHALT PAVEMENTS, VOLUME I, PROCEEDINGS, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, JULY 13-17, 1987, ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN

For design and evaluation of pavement resurfacing alternatives, it is necessary to consider the existing condition of pavements and to establish decision criteria for triggering the necessary pavement maintenance or rehabilitation actions. This paper presents a methodology based on a systems approach for designing and evaluating resurfacing strategies. The PRDS-1 (Pavement Rehabilitation Design System) computer program incorporates this methodology. The program uses mechanistic analysis to generate numerous resurfacing design alternatives and perform economic evaluation. The evaluation technique is sensitive to both the performance and cost of these competing resurfacing alternatives. Cost factors include the initial construction costs, future maintenance and overlay costs, user costs associated with traffic delay during overlays, and interest costs. Linear elastic theory is used for structural response calculations. Resurfacing alternatives include bituminous concrete, jointed portland cement concrete, and continuously reinforced concrete. Fatigue equations are used in the PRDS-1 to detemine the number of load applications a pavement structure can carry before it reaches the limiting failure criterion. Overlay placement times are specified in the PRDS-1 in terms of percentage remaining life of the pavement structure. The PRDS-1 program limits the number of thickness design alternatives by omitting those which provide excessive lifetimes. All costs are discounted to present worth for an economic comparison of alternatives. The top twenty strategies are sorted by the PRDS-1 program in order of increasing present worth. The details of these strategies are printed in an easily readable format.