Technical Basis of Austroads Pavement Design Guide

This report records the work undertaken in the development of Pavement Design – A Guide to the Structural Design of Road Pavements, initially published by the National Association of Australian State Road Authorities (NAASRA) in 1987 and subsequently revised and re-issued by Austroads in 1992. It briefly describes the predecessor and progenitor – the Interim Guide to Pavement Thickness Design (NAASRA 1979) – and then proceeds to review the technical issues encountered, and the solutions adopted, in the formulation of the Guide. This material presented in the Guide represented many years of development in Australia and overseas in design procedures for flexible pavements for highway traffic. The Guide was developed by a series of (then) NAASRA Working Groups representing both the members of NAASRA and industry. Note that the names of the various Road Authorities relevant at the time (rather than the current names) are used throughout this report. This report does not address the origins of Chapter 9 of the 1992 Guide – the Design of Rigid Pavements – which is the subject of another report in this document (Part 2).