A Statistical Model for Prediction of Critical Strains in Pavements from Deflection Measurements

ABSTRACT Existing pavements of collector rural roads are often characterized by a strong dishomogeneity in pavement layer thicknesses and mechanical properties of materials. In order to evaluate structural conditions of these pavements, they must be delineated in homogeneous sub-sections with regard to variations both in the thickness and the mechanical properties of pavement layers, but this task is often very difficult. For this purpose, this paper proposes a statistical model for the straight evaluation of critical strains in pavements by using the deflections measured by the Falling Weight Deflectometer and the layer thicknesses without backcalculating layer moduli. The model is calibrated on the basis of experimental data and it is useful to evaluate statistical parameters of the homogeneous sub-sections with the aim to evaluate the residual pavement life taking into account the reliability concepts.