Review on evolution and evaluation of asphalt pavement structures and materials

TLDR

The study aims to review asphalt pavement literature, trace its evolution, analyze common structures, highlight current research trends, and suggest future research directions. The authors examined pavement evolution from early roads to modern designs, classified 1,087 pavement structures using the UAPC method to study thickness variation, and evaluated performance by applying the Chinese design specification to 57 high- and low-volume pavements. The study introduced a new three-family classification of asphalt materials, proposed a unified asphalt pavement classification that divides global pavements into six types, and found that over the past century pavement materials and structures have become stronger, asphalt layer thicknesses range from 5 to 60 cm, overall pavement thicknesses from 28 to 160 cm, and that long-life pavements in other countries may become shorter-life when evaluated with the Chinese specification.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to summarize the wide-range literatures on asphalt pavements, explore the evolution of road pavements, analyze typical asphalt pavement structures, highlight current trends in research and industry, and to recommend future areas of research and development. In this research, road pavement evolution was explored from the earliest roads to the modern pavements. A new method was recommended to categorize asphalt pavement materials into the three large families which may be further sub-divided according to their mechanical parameters. A unified asphalt pavement classification (UAPC) method was proposed and the worldwide asphalt pavements could be divided into six types through the new method. Based o n the UAPC method, 1087 asphalt pavement structures were classified and analyzed to explore the asphalt thickness variation. In order to evaluate asphalt pavement performance, the Chinese design specification was employed for analyzing lives of 29 high-volume pavements and 28 low-volume pavements. Through this research, it was found that: (1) in the past 100 years, asphalt pavement materials and structures had been becoming more and more strong; (2) asphalt layer thicknesses were various from 5 to 60 cm and the overall pavement thicknesses were various from 28 to 160 cm; (3) the long-life pavements in the other countries may become "shorter-life" pavements according to the prediction based on the Chinese specification.