National Concrete Pavement Technology Center

Project description

In Michigan, four pilot long-life pavement sections were constructed between 2017 and 2019; two rigid and two flexible pavements. Each pilot project included a long-life and an accompanying standard (control) section constructed on the same highway. Modifications to standard designs and materials were made to extend their service life. The scope of this project included as-built evaluation of these pilot long-life projects to determine their potential for meeting the intended design and service lives. Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) performed numerous field tests and collected material samples from these projects. The project team performed extensive analyses of the field data and run numerous laboratory tests to characterize the material properties. As-constructed material properties were used in different mechanistic-empirical (ME) design software to estimate the expected performance of all the pilot projects. Based on the detailed laboratory and field testing and the mechanistic-empirical performance predictions, recommendations were made in structural design, material selection, construction, and quality control and quality assurance procedures.