Long term research of experimental asphalt pavement structures

Abstract

A fast increase in the prices of road building materials create a necessity to look for new cheaper possibilities of using local materials and their mixes in building, reconstructing and repairing roads and streets. In order to increase the strength of road pavement structures and their separate layers the requirements for road building materials and their mixes are getting more and more strict. Various laboratory investigations showed that the mentioned measures are efficient and gave a positive effect. However, Lithuania still lacks experimental investigations to model the performance of new materials, their mixes and the combinations of separate pavement structural layers under real conditions. The article presents construction of experimental asphalt pavement structures for the first time in the road history of Lithuania. These asphalt pavement structures are loaded with natural traffic. The total length of a test section is 710 m and consists of 24 segments of the same length (30 m) and 1 segment - 20 m long. In each segment the pavement structure of different composition was constructed. Stress and strain transducers were installed to measure stresses and strains in different layers of experimental pavement structures. Investigation methods and results from two years observation of the experimental road are presented. Stress and strain measurements are carrying out each time after passes 20 000 ESAL’s calculated to 100 KN.