Predicting Postconstruction Settlements Generated by Moving Traffic on Highways Built on Soft Soil in China Using Mechanistic-Empirical Design Method

Abstract

Excessive postconstruction settlement of a highway seriously affects its service performance, a problem that deserves attention urgently. This paper describes an exploratory study on predicting postconstruction settlements of highways built on soft soil in China generated by moving traffic through mechanistic-empirical design. The mechanistic-empirical permanent deformation model proposed by AASHTO was employed in this paper, and the layerwise summation method was adopted to calculate total highway postconstruction settlements. Traffic-induced dynamic stress was obtained through a pavement dynamic model established previously by the authors and used as input to the mechanistic-empirical (M-E) design method. Localized parameters in the M-E model were calibrated through in situ road measurements at different project sites in China. Comparisons between the present work and the in-situ measurements of several highways in China indicate that the mechanistic-empirical design method can predict road postconstruction settlement in China.