Design Temperature on Flexible Pavements

Simple models for calculating the representative hourly distribution of heavy traffic and asphalt layer temperatures are described. The input data for traffic is the average annual daily number of commercial vehicles, and for pavement temperatures it is the maximum and minimum monthly air temperatures. Validation procedure was conducted for Portuguese data. The use of these models is now leading to a more realistic description of flexible road pavement behaviour, resulting in better design. A study was carried out to determine whether the Portuguese Road Pavement Design Manual for pavement structures is compatible with much better definition of loading conditions. The study showed that a better characterisation of pavement design conditions leads to more reliable results. The principles and structure of the models presented could be easily adopted elsewhere.