Postflooding Asphalt Pavement Condition Assessment for Roadway Operation Strategy

Abstract

Flooding can cause severe damage to roadway infrastructure due to inundated foundation. It is important to evaluate the postflooding pavement performance and make decisions for roadway opening and operation. Many studies have evaluated pavement performance after flooding, but the existing methods are either oversimplified or not applicable without information of realistic pavement saturation conditions. This study developed a new method to assess quantitatively the postflooding pavement performance, and proposes a decision support framework for roadway operation based on falling weight deflectometer (FWD) testing. Field measurements were collected to characterize the nonlinear modulus of pavement unbound materials under realistic stress states and moisture conditions. Finite-element models were developed and validated to relate FWD deflections to critical pavement responses under traffic loading. The results show that FWD deflections have good correlations with pavement surface deflections and tensile strains at the bottom of the asphalt layer under moving loads, which facilitates prediction of pavement performance. With the information of traffic loading on the roadway, pavement damage ratios at different saturation conditions after flooding can be evaluated. By comparing the estimated damage ratio and the agency-determined threshold, either truck weight limits or volume control can be adopted to mitigate the impact of flooding on pavement damage. With the method proposed in this study, transportation agencies can implement roadway operation considering performance deterioration and recovery of postflooding pavement.