AYMA: Mechanistic Probabilistic System To Evaluate Flexible Pavement Performance

Abstract

A new rational mechanistic model for analysis and design of flexible pavement systems has been developed. Furthermore, a fundamental probabilistic approach was incorporated into this system to account for the uncertainty of material and environmental conditions. The system was integrated in a user-friendly Windows program with a variety of user-selected options that include widely used models and those recently developed in the Strategic Highway Research Program project. Three basic types of distress can be investigated separately or all together, including fatigue cracking, permanent deformation, and low-temperature cracking. The mechanistic approach makes use of the JULEA layered elastic analysis program to obtain pavement response. The system provides optional deterministic and probabilistic solutions, accounts for aging and temperature effects over the asphalt materials, variable interface friction, multiple wheel loads, and user-selected locations for analysis. Tabular and graphical results provide expected distress values for each month as well as their variability, probability of failure, and assessment of the overall reliability of the pavement relative to each type of distress for a user-selected failure criterion. Only the load-associated module of AYMA is presented; a separate work describes the low-temperature cracking analysis.