Modeling the Methods of Flexible Pavements Maintenance

Abstract

This paper describes the development of Evaluation of Pavement Condition Model software (EPCM), which consists of three main elements. The first element deals with a road network definition to create a database for each road in the network to make future predictions of pavement condition. The second element evaluates the present status of asphalt pavement depending on the type, severity, and extent of distress, and then calculates the value of a pavement condition index. For each value there is certain pavement condition requiring one type of maintenance activity. The third element deals with prediction of the pavement condition in future. This element cannot be applied in Iraq now because there are no historical data for each road in the network, but after applying this model and saving the information about each road, this will become possible after drawing a curve for each asphalt pavement. The written software was applied to a case study of local road in Abo-Ghreeb city in Baghdad with a length of 1.45 km and a width of 8 m. The result of this application was that road required an asphalt overlay. According to the Abo-Ghreeb municipality, the required maintenance activity for this road was resurfacing, which is the common maintenance method in Iraq. This is different because of the independency on a fixed criterion to select a maintenance method.