Backcalculation of pavements incorporating Grouted Macadam technology

Abstract

Applying cement grout with a high compressive strength to a porous layer made of asphalt concrete results in a pavement with the properties of an intermediate type that combines the characteristics of both flexible and rigid pavements. This solution is known as Grouted Macadam (GM). Despite a wide range of test results on the GM pavements presented in the literature, there are very few advanced modelling solutions formulated in the scope of bearing capacity measured in situ be means of a Falling Weight Deflectometer. This paper turns out that the seemingly small frequency of loading (≈20 Hz) generated during pavement deflection measurements using a Falling Weight Deflectometer-like device, has a significant impact on the backcalculation results of GM pavements. The study shows that, introducing frequency normalisation of both the pavement loading and vertical displacements to the backcalculation, can limit the statistical scatter of backcalculation results by close to a half in comparison with the classical backcalculation procedure.

Keywords:

• Grouted Macadam
• flexible pavement
• backcalculation
• quasi-static
• deflection basin

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Andrzej Pożarycki http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1321-066X

Jakub Fengier http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2454-1787

Przemysław Górnaś http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0632-4191

Dariusz Wanatowski http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5809-0374

Additional information

Funding

This work has been partially supported by the Polish National Centre for Research and Development [Grant No. 244285] entitled ‘Precise system of the load capacity parameters identification of roadway structure in predicting the lifetime of road pavements’.