On Monday 28 May Dr John Rolt, a recognised world leader in pavement research, discussed the initiation and progress of a paradigm shift in the understanding of pavement design, explaining how it can lead to large savings in maintenance costs throughout the world.
Theoretical analysis based on a multi-layer elastic model indicates that fully flexible pavements should behave in a fairly simple way - namely bending fatigue of the bituminous layer and fatigue of the underlying subgrade.
This model has been used almost universally for pavement design for many years, but research that began some years ago in countries with more extreme conditions of road pavement loading than the UK has continually shown that this model is more often wrong than right and road pavements usually behave quite differently.
Such behaviour is now also widely recognized on the roads of the UK. This is a true paradigm shift and, like others before it, acceptance has taken many years.
Unfortunately there was not time at the event to answer all questions. However, Dr. Rolt has kindly answered the following questions which were captured from the online chat window.
For more information, please contact (recordedlectures@ice.org.uk)
Visit
ICE and TRF Fellows Lecture: How Flexible Road Pavements Really Behave - The Paradigm Shift in our Understanding of Road Behaviour
Visit link
Get Acrobat Reader