Civil Engineering ETDs

Publication Date

2-1-2016

Abstract

The New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) uses a composite pavement condition index to identify and rank roads for budgeting and scheduling repairs. NMDOT uses an index number called the Pavement Serviceability Index or PSI. A key component of this index number is the Distress Rate (DR) which is comprised of pavement distress severities and extents with a weighting factor assigned for each distress. Until 2013, NMDOT conducted pavement evaluations manually and in 2012 revised how pavement distress data were collected and evaluated. The two pavement distress collection procedures that were altered the most were for transverse cracking and alligator cracking. This research evaluates how sensitive the DR is to the revised data collection procedures. The comparison used a single milepost test section and one evaluator as ground truth data and then varied input values for a single item while holding all of the others constant to see what sort of influence the data had on the DR. The results confirmed that the DR has limited sensitivity due to the data ranges used for input to the composite DR index.

Keywords

Manual Pavement Evaluation Sensitivity Analysis

Document Type

Thesis

Language

English

Degree Name

Civil Engineering

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Civil Engineering

First Committee Member (Chair)

Valentin, Vanessa

Second Committee Member

Zhang, Guohui

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