Civil Engineering Association

Sensitivity Analyses for Flexible Pavement Design with the Mechanistic–Empirical Pavement Design Guide. Conclusion

This workshop’s mission was to inform the pavement engineering community on the completed and on-going efforts related to assessing the sensitivity of the Mechanistic– Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG). Specifically, the workshop was concerned with those parameters that had an impact on flexible pavement analysis and design. Many transportation agencies have been involved in various studies to look at particular parts of the MEPDG, but much of this work had not been compiled into a single document. As such, a workshop was proposed by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Flexible Pavement Design Committee (AFD60) and approved by TRB to look at the flexible pavement sensitivity analysis in the MEPDG. Once accepted, a planning team was established to develop the workshop by collecting and disseminating the work done by transportation agencies. The workshop planning team had two primary goals: (1) Take a snapshot of the current implementation status of transportation agencies through a questionnaire and reporting on workshops hosted by the Federal Highway Administration and (2) Invite transportation agencies based on their responses to the questionnaire to present on a specific subject or overall research implementation effort. Additionally, the planning team wanted to capture and present current National Cooperative Highway Research Program research related to flexible pavement analysis and performance. Workshop Session 143, held in January 2010, met these goals by providing presentations on various efforts related to understanding the sensitivity of flexible pavement performance using the MEPDG inputs.