RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN AUSTRALIA IN CONCRETE PAVEMENT THICKNESS DESIGN

Abstract

Over the last few years, Australian engineers have continued to review and refine the Austroads Rigid Pavement thickness design model to increase the design reliability and make the design process more efficient to allow more pavement configurations to be analysed and assess for life cycle costing. Australia adopted the PCA thickness design method in 1992 with the addition of a new axle group making the total of four axle groups to analyse for fatigue and erosion distress. Similar to other International pavement engineers, Australia has recognised the shortcomings of the PCA method and had made small adjustments in the thickness design approach to ensure the design allowed for the construction practice and materials in Australia. The PCA thickness design method with its tables and nomographs made it a cumbersome task to design a pavement with four or six axle groups of data. All the PCA charts and tables have been converted to algorithms in metric units. The development of these algorithms is outlined in the paper.