An Investigation of Using Accelerated Pavement Testing (APT) in Planning of Maintenance and Repair Activities

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Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Civil Engineering, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

2 Department of Civil Engineering, Urmia University

Abstract

The purpose of Accelerated Pavement Testing (APT) is to study and analyze the environmental and traffic conditions on the structural and functional behaviors of pavements. Under real conditions, analysis of these effects can take up to several years. The need for APT is due to the lack of reliability of the design models and the analysis techniques, which could be verified under ordinary traffic conditions. In this paper, after investigation of the importance of using of APT in pavement engineering researches, various types of this test are introduced. Its application in evaluation of different structural and functional parameters of pavements such as roughness, rutting and etc. has been analyzed. Some failure mechanisms and essential parameters of the pavement responses that should be considered in the test program, are presented. Also, the application of APT in evaluation of the effects of various types of pavement maintenance and repair activities with their performance results are discussed. In addition, some of advantages and disadvantages of the APT in this evaluation are presented. The results show that the rate of pavement deterioration under accelerated loading is not well simulated, because pavement deterioration is a long-term process. Hence, comparison and validation between measured and predicted deterioration rates requires the application of relative performance coefficients to these rates. Finally, it can be said that the APT can be a useful tool for evaluation of pavement maintenance and repair activities, provided that actions are well planned with a comprehensive understanding of engineering, performance and behavior of pavements.

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