Improvement of Climate Data for Use in MEPDG Calibration and Other Pavement Analysis

Project Details
STATE

GA

SOURCE

TRID

START DATE

09/01/16

END DATE

01/01/19

RESEARCHERS

Stephan A. Durham; Bora Cetin; Charles Schwartz; Barton Forman; and Leela Sai Praveen Gopisetti

SPONSORS

Georgia DOT

KEYWORDS

Climate effects, Ground-based weather station (GBWS), Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG), ModernEra Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), Pavement analysis

Project description

This study compares the predicted distresses of asphalt concrete (AC) and jointed plain concrete pavement (JPCP) using four different climate data sources: (1) ground-based weather station (GBWS) data, (2) the North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) data, and (3 and 4) the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) versions 1 and 2 (MERRA-1 and MERRA-2) data. The results indicate that pavement performance predictions generated using these data showed disagreement among some of the climate data sources, especially for MERRA-2. Comprehensive diurnal and time-series analyses of the raw climate data found significant disagreements in the percent sunshine data.
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