Evaluation of in-situ variability of concrete pavement characteristics and their effect on performance

Pavement performance prediction must account for uncertainties in pavement characteristics, climate, traffic loading, etc. Past research identified that concrete thickness and flexural strength were two pavement characteristics that significantly affected transverse cracking in Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements (JPCP). This dissertation concentrated on quantifying the effect of concrete thickness variability and, to a lesser extent, flexural strength variability on the reliability analysis of jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP) performance. Concrete thickness is typically assessed by measuring the length of concrete cores, but this procedure limits the amount of information collected. The possibility of using non-destructive testing to assess concrete thickness was evaluated and significant efforts were dedicated to quantification of the variability of constructed pavement concrete thickness and determination of requirements for thickness sampling spacing using autocorrelation concepts. The Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) is a tool used to evaluate the performance of JPCP, which predicts pavement distresses based on a desired reliability of design. MEPDG's current reliability analysis does not allow the MEPDG to quantify the effect of improved material characterization prior to design or the effect of quality control on pavement performance. In this study, a method to account for pavement characteristic variability in the reliability analysis is presented and evaluated the measured variability of rigid pavement concrete thickness and flexural strength.