Pavement Structural Evaluation at Network Level Pavement Management—A Case Study

Network level pavement management system (PMS) helps state highway agencies predict future condition scenarios, optimize treatment actions, and estimate funding needs. Most current PMS relies on the assessment and modeling of pavement surface distresses in supporting these activities. Recently several devices, commonly termed as traffic speed deflection devices (TSDDs), have been introduced that can collect pavement structural condition data in a safe and cost-effective manner while traveling at traffic speed, making network level pavement structural evaluation practical. This study summarizes research efforts to-date by authors on developing analysis methodologies, and procedures for incorporating network level pavement structural evaluation in pavement management activities using traffic speed deflectometer (TSD) measurements. A field case study was used to demonstrate the developed methodologies that 1) adjust measurements to a reference temperature, 2) backcalculate pavement layer moduli, and 3) calculate structural number as an indicator of remaining structural capacity of in-service pavement sections.