Long life and perpetual asphalt pavements were developed in the UK and America to provide strong and durable pavement structures having a long structural life of over 40 years with only minor maintenance in the form of periodic surfacing renewal required during this period. This paper describesthe development of alternative infinite structural life, low maintenance asphalt pavements which are designed using the mechanistic-empirical design method. The paper describes the key performance characteristics of asphalt pavement layers and demonstrates how asphalt fatigue and subgrade deformation can be totally eliminated as structural failure modes for the infinite life asphalt pavements. Infinite life asphalt pavements will have farsuperior long term performance than the present long life and perpetual pavements. The design approach presented in this paper may be applied to the design of heavy duty asphalt pavements for heavily trafficked motorways as well as for heavily loaded port, container terminals, industrial areas and airports.
Abstract