July/August
2002
The
Biggest Bang for Your Buck
by John E. Naughton III and Kurt Smith
This
is no pie in the sky. A simple tool is on its way to help you compare
the cost of different design features of concrete pavements.
Cost
and performance are an integral part of the planning, design, and
construction of pavements. Although pavement design engineers may
understand that a certain feature has a positive impact on performance,
they may not know the full benefits of the feature or its effect on
the total construction costs. Particularly
with regard to concrete pavements, designers may not fully consider
the cost of individual design features and their impact on
performance.
To provide
design engineers with the information they need to improve pavements,
a research study was initiated on the incremental costs and performance
benefits of various features of concrete pavements. A major component of the project
is the development of a user-friendly
computer software package that will enable pavement
designers to compare the impact
of design features on cost and performance.
![Photo of bent tie bars visible at the edge of the pavement](images/08image1.jpg) |
The
bent tie bars visible at the edge of the pavement are indicative
of the use of a tied concrete shoulder, one of the many design
features that this project is evaluating for cost and performance
(above). |
This
tool will help agencies provide the best value to the traveling public.
The product of this research also may enable agencies to construct
or reconstruct more miles of highway each year using the same level
of funds without sacrificing performance.
"Sometimes
design features are added to the design for reasons other than cost,"
says Shin Wu, senior research engineer at Ohio University and recently
retired from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Because
of this project, he adds, engineers now will have some idea how much
these added features affect the overall paving cost."The findings
of this project," he notes, "will provide pavement design
engineers with a useful tool in making design decisions."
Literature
Review and Advisory Panel
Applied
Pavement Technology, Inc., which is conducting the research, completed
a detailed literature review during the first phase of the project.
The focus was to locate references discussing costs and benefits
of design features for concrete
pavements. The basis for the current reference list was a previously
conducted literature review completed for a training course on
"Concrete Pavement Design Details
and Construction Practices" by the Federal Highway Administration's
(FHWA) National Highway Institute (NHI).
A cross-section
of the concrete pavement industry is serving as an advisory panel
for the project, including contractors, engineers, and representatives
of FHWA and State departments of transportation (DOTs). Gary Fick,
chief estimator for Duit Construction of Edmond, OK, is serving on
the panel. "There is a misunderstanding about what some pavement
features add or take away from a roadway," says Fick.
"The
results of this research will benefit our industry by giving the
pavement engineering community better information about the costs
and benefits of different features
of portland cement concrete pavement."
Design
Categories and Features
From
the literature review and discussions with the project's task panel,
the research team identified 10 design categories affecting pave ment
performance. Each category includes one or more design features. In
the load transfer category, for
example, dowel bars and aggregate interlock are individual design
features.
![Photo of workers placing tie bars as wet pavement comes out of the paving machine](images/08image2.jpg) |
Workers
place tie bars, as the wet concrete comes out of the paving
machine, in preparation for adding a tied concrete shoulder,
another design feature under evaluation. |
Design
Categories - Pavement
cross-section
- Thickness
and slab size
- Concrete
strength and materials
- Base
and subbase
- Subgrade
- Joints
and load transfer
- Joint
sealing
- Drainage
- Shoulders
- Smoothness
|
Using
these design categories and appropriate design features, the team
collected expected performance information from experienced
pavement designers around the country and cost information
from concrete paving contractors. The objective of the data collection
is to create three datasets to be used as components of the software:
relative cost, relative performance, and ranking factors. A dataset
represents a group of data with a common source, used as the basis
for analysis. Users of the new cost and performance software will
be able to modify the datasets.
Data
Collection
The research
team contacted pavement designers with State DOTs and contractor members
of the American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) through letters,
e-mails, and telephone calls to determine if they were interested
in participating in the project. Their involvement consists of submitting
cost and performance data based on a standard portland cement concrete
(PCC) pavement section with varying design features and cross-sections.
The team asked the DOT pavement designers to estimate the change in
cost and performance, in terms of pavement life, that would be achieved
by incorporating that feature.
The team
determined that a minimum of 16 participants from State DOTs and 20
responses from the contractors would be the required sample size for
statistical significance. A project summary and request for participation
was faxed to 216 contracting companies. A total of 53 companies responded
to the request, with 38 agreeing to participate. All 48 DOTs in the
continental
United
States were contacted, 36 DOTs responded, and 25 agreed to participate.
Five of the DOTs that declined specifically stated that they
currently do not use PCC or use such a small percentage in their
construction that they would be unable to provide accurate data on
performance.
Initial
Findings
The data
collected during this project are based on a standard section, and
the relative performance and cost are expressed as a ratio. For example,
if a tied concrete shoulder is added to the standard section, the
relative performance based on the standard section might be 1.24 and
the relative cost might be 1.15. This means that there would be a
24 percent increase in performance and a 15 percent increase in costs
for that particular design feature.
From
the contractors' responses, the initial findings indicate that selection
of the drainage layer for this survey, specifically asphalt-treated
permeable base with edgedrain—creates the greatest increase in
cost (1.329). Initial results also show that the greatest reduction
in construction cost (0.853) is the elimination of the base layer
and constructing the slab directly on the subgrade. Pavement cross-section
appears to have little effect on the construction costs.
The initial
results from the DOTs indicate that slab thickness provides the greatest
influence on relative pavement performance. Variation of the slab
thickness provided both the greatest increase in performance 2.181
for 30.5-centimeter (12-inch) PCC and the greatest reduction in performance
0.541 for 20-centimeter (8-inch) PCC. These two responses, however,
have high standard deviations. The responses for the use of a 30.5-centimeter
PCC ranged from no increase in performance (1.0 response) to a relative
increase of 3.3, showing a wide range in assumed performance. Initial
results also indicate that cross-section has little effect on the
performance similar to the findings on relative cost.
The research
team also asked the volunteers to "force rank" the 10 design
categories in order of perceived impact on performance, based on cracking,
faulting, spalling, and overall ride or smoothness. These rankings
are used to determine the impact of multiple design features. Project
volunteers used integers between 1 and 10, and no ties were allowed.
From the results received to date, the top three design categories
based on pavement failure criteria were listed in order
of importance.
The ranking
produced during this
project is subjective in nature. The intent is to capture the perceptions
and expertise of the pavement
design engineers. The project
software is designed so that users can add more objective performance
information as it becomes available.
Preliminary
Ranking Results by Failure Criteria |
---|
Cracking
·
Thickness
·
Subgrade
· Base
Spalling
·
Material
·
Load transfer
·
Joint seal
|
Faulting ·
Load transfer ·
Drainage ·
Base Smoothness ·
Load transfer ·
Subgrade ·
Base |
Data
Analysis
During
the proposal stages of the project, it became apparent that the performance
data are not directly cumulative because of their interdependence.
If dowels are expected to increase life by 40 percent, for example,
and a permeable base is expected to increase life by 10 percent, the
actual increase in life will not be 50 percent but somewhere between
those two numbers. Cost data, on the other hand, are more or less
directly additive.
To address
the challenge presented by this discrepancy, the team developed an
alternative method of calculating the impact of performance for combinations
of multiple design features. The method uses a weighted ranking system
that rates the features based on impact and importance. The team will
calculate the actual ranking based on the survey results and existing
performance models such as those of the American Association of State
Highway Transportation Officials and the
Long-Term Pavement Performance program.
Project
Software
The final
deliverable is an interactive computer program that enables pavement
designers to compare the costs and benefits associated with various
design features for concrete pavements. The team is designing the
program so that the user can enter unique standard sections and then
compare them using the analysis tools provided in the software. Initially,
the software will be populated with data from the research project,
with the expectation that new or updated information can be added
as it becomes available. The user will be able to create new datasets
for relative cost, relative performance, and ranking factors, and
define additional design features. The user also will be able to share
data with other users.
The software
is being designed with both the casual user and pavement researcher
in mind. The software will have the capability to compare different
pavement sections and the ability to perform additional sensitivity
analyses. These analyses include the ability to compare multiple cost
and performance datasets, multiple ranking factor datasets, and
multiple variables within a design
category.
John E. Naughton III is a program director for Applied Pavement
Technology, Inc., supporting airport pavement evaluation, design,
and construction projects. Naughton is the principal investigator
for the Task 6 Project, Incremental Costs and Performance Benefits
of Various Features of Concrete Pavements. Naughton was the managing
principal instructor and lead developer for NHI's Construction of
Portland Cement Concrete Pavements. He was the instructor for 15 of
the NHI courses and has made nearly 50 technical presentations on
highway, airfield, and municipal pavements-related issues. Naughton
has directed several task forces on concrete pavement specifications,
including the American Concrete Pavement Association's Airfield Task
Group. He
has a B.S. and an M.S. in civil engineering from the University of
Illinois, and he is a registered professional engineer in Illinois.
Kurt
Smith is a program director with Applied Pavement Technology,
Inc., and has more than 17 years of experience in pavement design,
evaluation, and rehabilitation. Smith is currently serving as the
co-principal investigator on two FHWA-sponsored research studies:
one evaluating the development of materials-related distress in concrete
pavement and the other developing guidelines for the repair and rehabilitation
of concrete pavements. He also is serving as the principal investigator
for an FHWA project on Portland Cement Concrete Overlays: State of
the Technology Synthesis, and is overseeing an FHWA project synthesizing
various pavement technology topics including pavement smoothness,
surface texture and noise, and alternative dowel bars. He has a BS
and an MS in civil engineering from the University of Illinois, and
he is a registered professional engineer in Illinois.
For
more information, please contact Kurt Smith at ksmith@pavementsolutions.com.
Other
Articles in this issue:
Taking
Concrete to the Next Level
Getting
It Together
Fine-Tuning
Innovative Technologies
On
the Road Testing Roads
Paving
the Way
Making
Roads Better and Better
Texas
Tests Precast for Speed and Usability
The Biggest
Bang for Your Buck
New
Software Promises to Put Whitetopping on the Map
Road
Map to the Future