Flexible Pavement Design Criterion Based on Octahedral Shear Stresses

Abstract The judicious pavement design is the key factor in achieving the longest service life and the lowest maintenance and rehabilitation costs. It is based on the consideration of the phenomena in which the pavement structures are subjected to exploitation and the limitation of their destructive effects. The aim of this study is to verify the possibility of implementing in the flexible pavement structures design practice of another design criterion based on limiting the bituminous mixtures creep phenomenon and that to be called: The criterion of admissible octahedral shear stresses in the bituminous layers. Estimation of octahedral shear stresses is done with a calculation model based on finite element method, and hereafter referred to as 2D ASFEM (2D Axi-Symmetric Finite Element Model). The paper presents the results obtained by modeling several specific calculation assumptions for the behaviour of flexible pavement structures in service. The study underlines the fact that the Octahedral Shear Stresses Ratio (OSSR) can be an additional design criterion to be taken into account when designing flexible pavement structures alongside other established criteria.