MILITARY INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Topic: Prospects of Application of Mechanistic Empirical Methodology of

Pavement Design in Bangladesh
 2

Prospects of Application of Mechanistic Empirical Methodology of

Pavement Design in Bangladesh
Ayesha Akhter
Department of Civil Engineering, Military Institute of Science and Technology, Bangladesh
E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract
In Bangladesh roads are constructed accordingly to LGED (Local Government Engineering
Department) and RHD (Roads and Highway Department). These design manuals are followed
by AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transport officials) based manuals
1993. There were some fall backs in AASHTO pavement design manual so after doing two
major research projects, the Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) was
adopted as AASHTO design standard in the end of 2007. MEPDG is a software based design
tool which is used now- a-days for road construction. Though most of roads in Bangladesh are
flexible pavement which are designed accordingly AASHTO empirical design method. For
future road construction method Bangladesh can use MEPDG method. We know that pavement
design methods are the combination with network level management systems so before
construction road authorities must develop a reliable long term financial plans based on the
estimated long term financial plans based on estimated structural capacity of the road network.
MEPDG can reduce significant design risk and inappropriate financial planning. Present days
for road construction no scientific and technical device has been provided and used during the
field study in Bangladesh according to the RHD rating method. For this reason, in future
construction we will face many problems such as short life cycle of pavement, repetition of
pavement repairing after a short break, high repairing budget, material scarcity etc. MEPDG
can give a long term solution of these problems. As a developing country Bangladesh can adopt
MEPDG to make road construction economic. In this study the future of MEPDG in
Bangladesh will be discussed. Here we will also discuss about the usefulness of the application
of MEPDG in road construction in Bangladesh.

Keywords – Design manual, Road construction, Pavement, Material, MEPDG

 3

1 Introduction
The present trend of road construction in Bangladesh is almost 95% bituminous pavement. But
considering safety, economy (in the long run), serviceability and comfort, concrete or rigid
pavement construction can be a reasonable option now a day. There are a small amount of
rigid pavement roads constructed by Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) and Local
Government Engineering Department (LGED). Altogether the Dhaka City Corporation
has constructed about 285 km concrete road where as Local Government Engineering
Department has constructed nearly 2% concrete road of about 40,000 km rural road
network [LGED, 2006]. For both flexible and rigid pavement design AASHTO old empirical
design method is used. Actually MEPDG design method is rare in the construction sector in
Bangladesh. If we want to keep pace with the latest world construction technology we have to
adopt MEPDG method in our construction sector like other developing countries as example,
Srilanka.
Main drawbacks of flexible Pavements in Bangladesh are maintenance cost, effect of
submergence, pollution problem are discussed below:
Maintenance Cost of Pavements in Bangladesh:
Every year a substantial amount of money has been spending for developing an
appropriate road in countrywide and associated maintenance cost for the built roads. The
execution of maintenance works should include an expanded periodic that on the national and
regional highway network, about 700 km of thin overlay or other bitumen surface treatment
should be undertaken each year.
Effect of Submergence:
The pavements of Bangladesh are greatly suffered from submergence due to flood, heavy
rainfall, water logging due to inadequate drainage etc. A common enemy of the
bituminous pavement is the effect of water. Access of water into the pavement layers or
the sub grade is one of the normal causes of pavement failure.
Pollution Problem:
The present road maintenance practice in Bangladesh is a serious threat to the
environment. Road side heating of bitumen /aggregate or mixture of both openly in public
places produces black smoke that continues to mix with the environment and spoils
natural condition of the air. It causes pollution and serious health hazards.
The identified deterioration for flexible pavements are pot hole, raveling, alligator cracking,
polished aggregate, bleeding, upheaval depression, transverse erecting, longitudinal cracking,
edge cracking. For geographical position most of flexible pavements in Bangladesh are
affected by water very easily.
 4

One of the main drawbacks of rigid pavement is high initial cost of constructions and other is
temperature problem. High temperature effects on pavement stiffness for which load
distribution will be decreased. Material properties of Asphalt are closely dependent on
temperature due to reduced stiffness with increased temperature. It also reduces deformation
properties and load distribution. It may increase loading on sublayer.

2 Literature view and methodology

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) steps in the
construction of a high-type hot-mix bituminous pavement are listed as follows:
1. Preparation of the mixture
2. Preparation of base and leveling courses
3. Transportation and placing of the surface course mixture
4. Joint construction
5. Compaction and final finishing
The following sequences for the construction of a rigid pavement are:
a. Placing of forms
b. Installation of the joints
c. Batching of aggregates and cement
d. Mixing and placing concrete
e. Finishing concrete
f. Curing
Existing pavement design procedures are principally based on either empirical or mechanistic-
empirical approaches. An empirical approach is based on observed performance, without
consideration of theoretical behavior” Conversely, a mechanistic-empirical design approach
ties together the theoretical behavior of a pavement with observed performance.
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) pavement
design procedures originally derived from the 1960 Road Test data. The National Cooperative
Highway Research Program (NCHRP) introduced a mechanistic empirical (M-E) design
tool, namely AASHTOW are M-E, to predict pavement stress strain and performance, i.e.,
distress (NCHRP, 2004).The accuracy of pavement distress predicted by the AASHTOW are
M-E depends on the characterization of fundamental engineering properties of the paving
materials.
It is clear that these empirical procedures are no longer applicable to current conditions in
Bangladesh. With the release of the new Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide
(MEPDG) in the USA, there is a big shift in pavement analysis and design and many state
highway agencies are undertaking initiatives to implement the MEPDG.
MEPDG:
Through progress in pavement design developments, a pavement design method was
developed, which is titled the Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG). In
 5

support of the MEPDG implementation initiatives, sensitivity studies were conducted using
the MEPDG software to identify design inputs pertaining to both rigid pavements and flexible
pavements that are of particular sensitivity.
Benefits of implementing the M-E Pavement Design Guide:
The major benefits of adopting the MEPDG are long term. While it is possible that immediate
benefits may be seen in terms of thinner pavements, or pavements with different component
properties, it is more likely that the benefits will be identified in the long term. These benefits
will accrue in a number of areas:
More appropriate designs
Better performance predictions.
Better materials-related research
Powerful forensic tool.

General process of an ME design

 6

Recommendations for pavement evaluation and rehabilitation design in MEPDG

(NCHRP, 2006)
Type Recommendation
1. Use in situ material properties obtained from pavement
evaluation as input
parameters for rehabilitation design.
2. Give better advice on HMA stiffness prediction for
existing pavements.
3. Give advice on other uses of the FWD, in addition to the
determination of
pavement layer stiffnesses.
4. Specify closer spacing for FWD testing, coring, and DCP
testing for the various
design levels.
5. Investigate and carry out more research of laboratory-
Essential resilient modulus
predictions of unbound materials from field values
determined from FWD data
using various conversion factors.
6. Improve the procedures for structural evaluation of
concrete pavements.
7. Improve the determination of LTE between slabs and
across cracks.
8. Check and correct, as appropriate, the detail concerning
base erodibility,
upward curl, and overburden on subgrade in relation to the
computations for
faulting in concrete slabs.
Give recommendations on the effect of interlayer bond
Desirable condition on pavement
evaluation, life prediction, and recommended treatment.

3 Bangladesh & MEPDG:

The current road pavement designs are based on empirical methods, the empirical methods
restrict the material properties to specified limits and as a result, most of the soil and aggregates
available in the country cannot be used for the road construction in an optimum way of usage.
This situation has caused shortage of materials such as aggregates and as a solution the
government expects to adopt the mechanistic-empirical approach for a road pavement
thickness design. guide without any consideration of the structural capacity of a pavement
system. Road networks in Bangladesh are structurally designed which restricts the indirect
material property to a specified-limit of the California Bearing Ratio value. As a result, a large
amount of in-situ soil and aggregates available in the country have not been used as roadway
construction materials in the context of optimum quantity. This may also result in over-
estimated or under-estimated catalogues of the current pavement design. This situation has
 7

caused a shortage or overuse of materials. To solve this problem, we can adopt the mechanistic-
empirical design system for new or overlay thickness design of pavements, especially for low-
volume roads. Mechanistic-empirical design can provide flexibility in using a wide range of
material properties because the pavement thickness design can be defined not by the indirect
material property such as the California Bearing Ratio value but by mechanical responses, such
as strain or stress in a critical location of a layered pavement system.
As example,
The current practice for pavement design and construction in Bangladesh is “Flexible
Pavement” without any engineering and economic considerations. The materials for such types
of pavement are mainly of two types:
(a) aggregates (brick or stone chips, sand) and
(b) bitumen.
The aggregates are collected locally but key element bitumen is mainly an
imported material. Only EBL (Eastern Refinery Limited) of Bangladesh imports bitumen
from different countries by expending lot of foreign currency every year. Bitumen is many a
foreign material. Every year the Government of Bangladesh has to
spend a lot of foreign money to procure bitumen by Refinery Limited (ERL), which is the
only importing company of bitumen in Bangladesh. With every new kilometer of road
built, as a flexible pavement is nothing but burdening the economy to find bitumen every
year for its maintenances, resurfacing and rehabilitation. Another factor is that Bitumen is
derived from petroleum crude, whose supply is shrinking gradually. Thus considering
long-term availability, bitumen is likely to become scarcer and scarcer as the decades roll
on. According to the information of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), the annual
consumption in Bangladesh is one lakh MT for road construction by DCC, LGED, and
RHD. The main supplier of this bitumen is Eastern Refinery Limited (ERL) whose own
production capacity is 70,000 MT per year. Remaining huge quantity of bitumen is
imported from abroad by ERL and different non-government organizations at the cost of
lot of hard foreign currencies. But quality of such kind of bitumen is lower compared to
the ERL that may hamper the quality of bituminous road construction seriously. So,
demand of ERL produced bitumen is high. When bitumen production of ERL is often
temporarily stopped due to lack of drum sheet or other technical problem, road construction
works are badly hampered and bitumen import is greatly enhanced in
contrast to the normal situation.
The drawbacks in utilizing the empirical catalogue design method may be the lack of flexibility
to introduce a new type of pavement system using in-situ materials in view of optimum amount
and non-availability of mechanistic–empirical material property data base, traffic loading for
a selected design period in terms of Equivalent Single Axle Load. While the asphalt surface is
not treated as a structural layer especially for the double bituminous surface treatment (DBST),
the structural capacities of unbound layers in base, subbase, and subgrade are generally
characterized by California Bearing Ratio value with consideration of drainage capacity
 8

without and the calibration of seasonal variation. A mechanistic analysis engine, including
well-defined functions for material behavior, was needed to calculate the pavement responses.
The pavement responses under the specified equivalent single axle
load can be used as an independent variable to estimate the pavement performance life. The
mechanistic-empirical design approach can provide flexibility in using a wide range of
materials but is not optimum because the pavement thickness design can be defined not by the
indirect material property of the California Bearing Ratio value but by the mechanistic
responses such as strain or stress in a critical location of a layered pavement system.
Another challenge is to shift asphalt binder testing standards from Penetration grading to Super
pave performance grading and a comprehensive rheological analysis for construction of Master
curve for Bangladeshi asphalt binder. For the successful implementation of aforementioned
tools and lab tests, an overall roadmap explaining the time schedule and deliverables is
proposed and roadmaps for individual systems were presented as a result of this project.

4 Solutions for Bangladesh

Mechanistic-empirical design requires short term and long term implementation plans. Short
term and long term plans detail the time schedule for developing the mechanistic-empirical
design engine for pavement response calculation, thickness design algorithm, and mechanistic-
empirical design software for pre and post processes of the design and limited lab test and
database preparation. The only difference between the two is that long term planning details
are an additional feature of overlay design tools and database management system.
The data types required for analysis using the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide
(MEPDG) range from simple data, such as the pavement design features and pavement
geometrics, to detailed data obtained from destructive testing (e.g., Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA)
dynamic modulus and Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) elastic modulus), nondestructive
testing
(e.g., Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) testing), and drainage surveys. The project-level
evaluation program incorporated into the Design Guide covers three common pavement types
–
flexible, rigid, and composite.
Overall pavement condition and problem definition can be determined by evaluating the
following major aspects of the existing pavement: (1) structural adequacy (load related), (2)
functional adequacy (user related), (3) subsurface drainage adequacy, (4) material durability,
(5) shoulder condition, (6) extent of maintenance activities performed in the past, (7) variation
of pavement condition or performance within a project, and (8) miscellaneous constraints (e.g.,
bridge and lateral clearance and traffic control restrictions).
The assessment methodologies of the existing pavement condition for conducting MEPDG
analysis and design was carried out primarily based on the review of MEPDG documentation,
i.e., NCHRP 1-37 A report. Published research articles, technical presentations and project
reports related to MEPDG, especially over the last few years, were also searched and reviewed.
A comprehensive review was undertaken with the following objectives:
 9

 Identify the data to be collected and the steps for determining the assessment of the
pavement’s current structural or functional condition suggested in NCHRP 1-37A;
 Examine the methodology to obtain the data for the assessment of the pavement
condition;
 Locate the design requirements for rehabilitation design with MEPDG methodology;
 Summarize recent research activities related to implementation of MEPDG.
The conceptual and logical database design can be done during the short-term plan. However,
the physical database only includes a limited lab test, field test, and field survey data. The
database should be interrelated with the mechanistic-empirical design tool, overlay design tool,
and the pavement management system in the long run. A national specification for roadway
construction can be effectively updated annually or else using the database system to decide a
number of calibration factors after doing a multivariable regression analysis. User requirement
analysis, conceptual, logical, and physical database design can be done during the long-term
plan. All the data will be interrelated by the entity-relation diagram and data flow diagram. A
graphic user interface will be designed and implemented to manage all the data.
The mechanistic-empirical design of asphalt overlay pavements requires an iterative and trial
and error approach. A designer must select a proposed trial overlay design and then analyze a
design in detail to determine whether it meets applicable performance criteria (i.e., rutting and
fatigue cracking) limited in a specification. If a particular trial overlay design does not meet
the performance criteria, the design must be modified and reanalyzed until it meets the criteria.
The design that meet the applicable performance criteria is then considered feasible from a
structural and functional viewpoint and can be further considered for cost efficiency.
The master curve of an asphalt binder provides a relationship between the binder stiffness and
reduced frequency over a range of temperatures and frequencies. For this purpose, complex
modulus of asphalt binder at multiple temperatures and frequencies was measured using
Dynamic Shear Rheometer. The data from laboratory test was then fitted into a viscoelastic
model to construct master curve.
The modifying of collected data to input data is needed such as Trucks Classification, Traffic
Growth Factor, Annual Average Daily Truck Traffic (AADTT), Monthly Adjustment Factors
(MAFi), Vehicle Class Distribution (VCD), Truck Hourly Distribution Factors, Axle Load
Distribution Factors (ALDF), Number of axle types (single, tandem, and tridem) per truck
class, cloud cover percent, and road sections selected for the local calibration. Detailed
descriptions of input parameters are explained in this paper, which leads to providing of an
approach for successful implementation of MEPDG.

5 Conclusion
In Bangladesh flexible pavement is very popular for road construction because of flexible
pavement can be opened within 24 hours of construction and can be constructed easily and
repaired easily. If we use MEPDG the design will be more good and we can increase design
life of pavement. It can also reduce repairing cost. By developing of finite element response
 10

model for mechanistic empirical design of flexible pavement we can reduce stress, treat AC
and sub grade layer.
MEPDG can be easily used in Bangladesh in future because of huge amount of data can be
collected easily from past and present road construction data such as load types, distress, stress,
axle design, climate data, deformation data etc. So I think in future for better result of any type
pavement construction Bangladeshi transport engineers will use MEPDG.

References
-NCHRP. 2006. Independent Review of the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design
Guide and Software. Research Results Digest 307. Washington, DC: National Cooperative
Highway Research Program, Transportation Research Board
-Uzan, J., Freeman, T. J., and Cleveland, G. S. 2005. Strategic plan of the Texas department
of transportation for implementing NCHRP 1-37A pavement design guide. Transportation
Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1919: 152-159.
-Rodezno, M. C., Kaloush, K. E., and Way, G. B. 2005. Assessment of distress in conventional
hot-mix asphalt and asphalt-rubber overlays on portland cement concrete pavements: using
the new guide to mechanistic-empirical design of pavement structures. Transportation
Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1929: 20-27.