Evaluation and Implementation Issues for the 2002 Pavement Design Guide

The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) is currently developing a new Pavement Design Guide based on mechanistic procedures. Kentucky is one of a very few states which has used mechanistic-empirical design procedures for many years. The Cabinet plans to implement this new design procedure over the next several years. A project is currently underway, "Development of Load Spectra for Use in Pavement Designs in the Implementation of the 2002 Design Guide" which deals with the development of the required traffic parameters of the new design procedure. It is anticipated that the work begun on the load spectra project would be incorporated into this project to provide the Cabinet with all the inputs of the new design procedure. The new design procedure utilized various material models coupled with a mechanistic analysis procedure to predict pavement performance. This resulting performance is then used to determine if a pavement structure is suitable, based on their local condition and historical pavement performance. The new guide will require the user to calibrate the results to these local conditions and establish performance requirements for a hierarchy of pavement structures. The results of this project will permit the Cabinet to be a leader in the implementation of this procedure.