Development of a Life-Cycle Assessment Tool for Pavement Preservation and Maintenance on Flexible and Rigid Pavement

Project Details
STATE

FHWA

SOURCE

TRID

START DATE

07/01/17

END DATE

07/01/19

RESEARCHERS

Qingwen Zhou, Egemen Okte, Sushobhan Sen, Hasan Ozer, Imad L. Al-Qadi, Jeffery R. Roesler, Karim Chatti

SPONSORS

USDOT

KEYWORDS

Cost cycle, Flexible pavements, Life cycle analysis, Maintenance, Pavement performance, Preservation, Rigid pavements, Tools

Project description

A complete life-cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was developed to quantify sustainability impacts of preservation activities for asphalt and concrete surfaced pavements. The LCA models and methodology was implemented in a software tool to support making project-level decisions in between various preservation and rehabilitation activities. The key components of the development include the inventory analysis used in the LCA calculations, treatment lifetime models and decision trees for preservation treatment selection. A nationwide survey was conducted through questionnaires. Questionnaires were designed specifically to target collecting data to build lifetime models in addition to agency experiences and practices. Decision trees were developed to guide decision makers to select from various preservation and rehabilitation options for a given existing pavement condition and traffic information. Data for the LCA also included that available in the literature or other publicly and commercially available databases to determine the LCA impacts of different preservation and maintenance schedules. The LCA scope includes materials, construction, maintenance and rehabilitation, and use stages. The inventory analysis was performed on data applicable to all regions in the United States. A tool was developed with a user-friendly interface using pay items as the building block for the ease of future implementation. The tool was intended for the engineers in state and local agencies, practitioners in the industry, and contractors. A sustainability analysis is presented to compare individual treatments or a schedule of treatments.
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