This synthesis report will be of interest to pavement design engineers in local, state, and federal transportation agencies. Pavement, materials, construction, and maintenance engineers will also find it of interest. In addition, it will be of interest to local technology transfer centres and pavement research engineers. This synthesis describes the state of the practice for thin-surfaced pavement project selection and structural design. It does not establish preferential design criteria (e.g., mix design) nor does it systematically evaluate existing design methods. Administrators, engineers, and researchers are continually faced with highway problems on which much information exists, either in the form of reports or in terms of undocumented experience and practice. Unfortunately, this information often is scattered and unevaluated and, as a consequence, in seeking solutions, full information on what has been learned about a problem frequently is not assembled. Costly research findings may go unused, valuable experience may be overlooked, and full consideration may not be given to available practices for solving or alleviating the problem. In an effort to correct this situation, a continuing NCHRP project, carried out by the Transportation Research Board as the research agency, has the objective of reporting on common highway problems and synthesising available information. The synthesis reports from this endeavour constitute an NCIW publication series in which various forms of relevant information are assembled into single, concise documents pertaining to specific highway problems or sets of closely related problems. This report of the Transportation Research Board describes the conditions in which thin-surfaced pavements are considered appropriate, what thin-surfaced pavement types are considered appropriate for given conditions, and the decision criteria used in their selection. Information for the synthesis was collected by surveying state and local transportation agencies and by conducting a literature search, including foreign resources. Case studies and an extensive collection of survey data (appending) are presented. To develop this synthesis in a comprehensive manner and to ensure inclusion of significant knowledge, the Board analysed available information assembled from numerous sources, including a large number of state highway and transportation departments. A topic panel of experts in the subject area was established to guide the researcher in organising and evaluating the collected data and to review the final synthesis report. This synthesis is an immediately useful document that records the practices that were acceptable within the limitations of the knowledge available at the time of its preparation. As the processes of advancement continue, new knowledge can be expected to be added to that now at hand. (A)
Abstract