FHWA Course Ushers in New Pavement Design Era
Meet the new approach to pavement design in Introduction to Mechanistic
Design of New and Rehabilitated Pavements, a Federal Highway Administration
(FHWA) course now available through the National Highway Institute (NHI).
The 5-day course (No. 131064) presents the theory and application of
the most current mechanistic design concepts and explores the status
of ongoing research and the impact it might have on the state of the
practice.
The course serves as an excellent introduction to the National Cooperative
Highway Research Program's 2002 Pavement Design Guide, which
takes a mechanistic approach to pavement design. It is anticipated that
the Guide, which is due out this month, will be adopted by the American
Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Monte Symons
of FHWA's Midwestern Resource Center (MRC) says, "I highly recommend
the course as a prerequisite to the sometimes complex methods contained
in the 2002 Pavement Design Guide." Keith Herbold of the
MRC adds, "I believe this is one of the best courses that NHI has
created. It has what pavement designers need to create good designs."
Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to:
- Differentiate between mechanistic- and empirically-based pavement
design approaches.
- Apply the basic concepts of mechanistic pavement design to both
the new design and rehabilitation of asphalt concrete and portland
cement concrete pavements.
- Describe the data required for mechanistic design, including the
application of deflection data for rehabilitation design, and explain
how the data is collected and analyzed.
- Perform sensitivity analysis to determine the effects of varying
input parameters on pavement design.
- Recognize the advantages of mechanistic pavement design and how
they relate to ongoing activities that are transforming the state
of the practice in pavement design.
Participants will also learn the calibration procedures being used
for the 2002 Guide and what will be required to calibrate the models
for their local conditions.
Last December, the MRC sponsored a pilot of the course in Olympia Fields,
Illinois. The pilot was a success, with most of the 22 attendees describing
the course as informative and excellent preparation for using the 2002
Guide. "The course exactly relates to what we do as pavement design
engineers," said Kumar Dave, a Pavement Design Engineer with the
Indiana Department of Transportation (DOT). "Anyone who hasn't
been introduced to mechanistic design should attend this course,"
commented Curtis Bleech, a Pavement Design Engineer with the Michigan
DOT.
The course is designed for pavement design engineers, material engineers,
and pavement management practitioners from transportation agencies,
the paving industry, and design consulting firms. There is a $345 participant
fee.
For more information on scheduling the course, contact Danielle Mathis-Lee
at NHI, 703-235-0528 (email: danielle.mathis-lee@fhwa.dot.gov).
For technical information on the course, contact Katherine Petros at
FHWA, 202-493-3154 (email: katherine.petros@fhwa.dot.gov).
More information is also available on the NHI Web site (www.nhi.fhwa.dot.gov/training/course_detail.aspx?num=FHWA-NHI-131064&cat=131000&key=&num=&loc=&sta=&tit=&typ=&lev=&ava=&str=&end=&drl=).
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Articles in this issue:
Avoiding Utility Delays: What Works
Finite Element Analysis: A Powerful Tool for Structures
FHWA Course Ushers in New Pavement Design Era
All HPC All the Time
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