Probabilistic Mechanistic-Based Pavement Damage Costs for Multitrip Overweight Vehicles

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to present a probabilistic approach for estimating asphalt concrete (AC) pavement damage–associated costs (PDAC) attributed to overweight (OW) vehicles. The approach is based on mechanistic-empirical analyses considering statistical distributions of critical factors influencing pavement damage. Monte Carlo simulation was used to generate OW vehicle cases for a wide range of conditions observed in Nevada. The cases were based on Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) 1-year overdimensional permit database containing more than 34, entries. The database was analyzed to generate PDAC distributions for different flexible pavement structures and temperature profiles. PDAC values were found to be particularly sensitive to environmental conditions and AC layer thickness. In the case of AC permanent deformation analysis, PDAC increased exponentially as pavement temperature increased. In an AC fatigue cracking analysis, high PDAC values were observed at intermediate temperatures. The probabilistic nature of the presented approach allows for PDAC evaluation over a variety of OW vehicle configurations and environmental conditions. It provides a meaningful, yet practical method of determining PDAC from OW vehicles without the need to conduct detailed and prohibitive individual deterministic assessments.