The Effects of Compaction Effort On the Lifespan Of Bituminous Pavements

More often than not, in Malaysia, millions of ringgit is spent each year remedying failures due to fatigue cracking and permanent deformation. Chief among the causes of these failures is the inability to ensure maximum desired compaction, especially on the bituminous surfacing layer. The material...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ahmad Zulkifli, Amir Mu'az
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2004
Subjects:
Online Access:http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/7811/1/2004%20-%20The%20Effects%20of%20Compaction%20Effort%20On%20the%20Lifespan%20Of%20Bituminous%20Pavements.pdf
http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/7811/
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Summary:More often than not, in Malaysia, millions of ringgit is spent each year remedying failures due to fatigue cracking and permanent deformation. Chief among the causes of these failures is the inability to ensure maximum desired compaction, especially on the bituminous surfacing layer. The materials used for our road construction projects are of the highest quality. It is suspected then, that a lack of supervision during the construction and compaction phase of a project results in the lack of compaction effort, which leads to failure. The objectives of this Final Year Project are to firstly establish the relationship between compaction effort and the performance and lifespan of bituminous pavements. This relationship could be expressed in the form of graphs, equations, charts and so on. Secondly, once a relationship is established, the second objective of this Final Year Project would be a comparative analysis on the life-cost cycle of any project, to show potential savings from an increasedinvestment in compaction effort. This Final Year Project starts with a review on past works and research regarding bituminous materials, compaction and life-cycle costing. This is followed by a series of laboratory tests, namely the static creep test and the wheel-tracking test. From this, a. relationship between the level of compaction with respect to the lifespan of pavements could be obtainedand a comparative analysis could be done on potential cost savings. From the laboratorytests that were conducted, a trend/pattern was established relating to the increase in pavement performance proportional to the increase in compaction. However, due to the inability to obtain maximum compaction, a definite relationship between compaction effort and lifespan of pavements could not be obtained. After making some assumptions, a comparative analysis was done and it was found that for every kilometer of road, a savings of $200,000 could be obtained for the entire project cycle. The assumptions are exaggerated and would have led to even greater cost savings if the exactrelationship between compaction effortandthe lifespan of pavements.