CLIMATIC INFLUENCES CONSIDERED IN PAVEMENT DESIGN METHODOLOGY

Abstract

Climate change is a global problem with serious social, economic and distributional effects on the environment. It is one of the main current challenges for humanity. Changing climate conditions in the long term, as well as short-term fluctuations and non-standard variation of temperature characteristics, have a significant impact on the behavior of pavement structure. Since the end of the 19th century, average temperatures have risen to 0.6 �C. The article describes the results of measurements and evaluations of non-standard climatic situations occurring in the territory of Slovakia and the assessment of their impacts on road pavement structure. For the design of pavements structures in the calculations, we consider the deformation of materials for equivalent temperatures derived from actual measured temperatures. The most important characteristics of the asphalt pavement temperature are considered to be the average annual temperature of the asphalt layer, the average daily temperature, and their average values in each of the seasons. The strain and stresses in concrete slabs are important/significant temperature gradients - the temperature difference at the top and bottom surfaces. The requirement from practice was to re-evaluate the behavior of pavement structures with respect to changes in the effects of the temperature regime by measuring temperatures with an analysis of their behavior. In the paper are examples of calculations and impact of standard and changing weather conditions on the dimensions of the structures and pavements lifetime. Some pavement structural design problems and solutions with respect to their temperature regime and climatic change conditions are described in sections dealing with asphalt pavements and pavements with cement concrete slabs.