A framework to evaluate short- and long-term performance of roller compacted concrete pavements

This paper presents a framework to evaluate the short-term (i.e., 28 days) and long-term (i.e., 30 years) performance of Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) pavement under traffic loading, materials, and environmental impacts. The framework assesses the short- and long-term damages of RCC pavement considering various factors including the aggregate gradation, the compaction level, the environmental residual stresses, and the geometrical inputs. It calculates the stresses at four critical locations in the pavement, which subsequently can be used to calculate the damage at these locations. The traffic model employed in the framework incorporates either simple traffic inputs (i.e., AADT, truck percent, growth function, and rate) or detailed traffic characteristics. This framework facilitates the effective evaluation of different aspects of RCC pavement design. The case study presented in this paper shows that the variability in the materials constituents, materials density, and environmental impacts can be compensated by increasing the designed thickness of the RCC pavement. This finding can be used to i) prioritize the mix design of RCC materials based on design inputs and, ii) quantify the optimum RCC pavement thickness required to minimize the effect of materials and construction factors in the field.