Effect of quality on damage in contiguous pavement sections Available to Purchase

This paper applies system dynamics to evaluate the effect of quality on damage in contiguous pavement sections. System dynamics models for a multisection stretch of roadways were developed and modified to include the effect of trigger time, delay and the presence of materials of different quality in adjacent sections. The results indicate that the initial quality of a section at a higher elevation and which allows the ingress of water can affect the rate of damage in an adjacent section at a lower elevation and that different sections can have different lives, despite having the same initial quality. The variability of the damage in the adjacent section at the lower elevation, due to the triggering damage in the sections at upper elevations, is much higher than that of the section at a higher elevation. Using an initial higher quality for the section at the lower elevation and ensuring an overall higher quality are the options for ensuring an acceptable rate of damage for all sections. The acceptable difference between the initial quality of the sections at the higher and lower elevations is dependent on the initial quality of the section at the higher elevation.