A new approach to the design of rigid pavement: single-axle loading

The purpose of a rigid pavement design is to determine the thickness of the layers and the quality of the materials used in the pavement. The stresses occurring in a pavement should not exceed the modulus of rupture of the concrete. In this study, the answer to the most reliable and cost-effective solution for a pavement design for a single axle and different temperature gradients was investigated. 3D finite element analysis (FEA) using the ABAQUS package program was carried out with the Taguchi method. A factor, cost to stress difference ratio (Cost/(sigma(cr) - sigma(max))), was developed to find both the most reliable and the cost-effective solution. The maximum principal stress was calculated by FEA for each of the alternative pavement design. Among the many alternative pavement designs, the solution that gives the minimum cost to stress difference ratio is selected as both the most reliable and cost-effective design.