The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) hosted the fourth American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Pavement ME National Users Group Meeting was held the first week of November at the Crowne Plaza New Orleans Airport, in Kennar, Louisiana. The annual meeting provided a unique opportunity for State Highway Engineers (SHA) and other stakeholders to discuss issues related to mechanistic-empirical (ME) pavement design and to discuss issues related to the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) and AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design. Close to 90 participants representing 35 State DOTs and Canadian Provinces gathered for what was the largest gathering for state DOTs, AASHTO and FHWA—that focused solely on “AASHTOWare’s Pavement ME Design tool”. The meeting was instrumental in facilitating the more rapid adoption of the MEPDG and Pavement ME Design Software.
Key topics included:
• Long-standing ME Pavement Design Guide
• AASHTOWare Pavement M-E Design program
• Implementation challenges
• Experiences
• Software updates
• Software enhancements
• ME research design applications
• Model calibration
• Validation
In addition to providing participants with a forum for the exchange of information and ideas, the meeting updated participants on improvements to the ME design procedure and software, provided demonstration-based training on new software features and unique design applications, and discussed the future needs and activities of the ME Users Group.
Eric Ferrebee, ACPA, participated in the meeting and had the opportunity to talk with designers and key officials about ACPA has long-advocated for the use of “AASHTOWare’s Pavement ME” for highway pavement design. Designers are encouraged to make the transition from older AASHTO design programs.
Ferrebee stated, “The design tool is the most advanced tool for designing and analyzing pavements that exists. This has led to more realistic designs for concrete pavements. Currently, because of complexity of the tool, many agencies are still working toward implementation. While there are quite a few agencies that have implemented it for concrete, others are still working through calibration efforts to ensure designs match with local performance. For concrete pavements, we’ve seen that the lack of calibration can result in increased pavement thicknesses, sometimes between 0.5 in. to 1.0 in. Even so, this is a significant decrease over the earlier empirical versions of the AASHTO design guide (i.e., AASHTO93, AASHTO86 and even AASHTO72). Those versions could result in variations that could add 2 to 3 in. to thickness designs.”
“Moving toward Mechanistic-Empirical design is a big step for DOTs, but it can help create realistic and competitive designs for concrete,” he added.
The program included:
Welcome and Introductions
Agency Implementation Status
AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design Software Update
ME Research Summaries
ME Research into Practice
Agency Implementation Experiences
Innovations/Improvement in Traffic and Climate Forecasting
Pavement ME Q&A Forum
Design Issues and Applications
Local Calibration Experiences
Software Training
Additional Pavement Analysis Tool for the Integration to PEM
Discussion, Future of National ME Users Group, & Remarks
ARA has developed a new Calibration Assistance Tool (CAT), which many participants expressed interest and excitement about. The tool should help ease some of the issues with calibrating the tool for local use. Designers and others a chance had an opportunity to see CAT demonstrations and to discuss issues with the tool, as well as overall implementation.
For a PDF of the PROGRAM, please go to: https://www.appliedpavement.com/assets/20190909_me-meeting-program-new-orleans.pdf