Abstract
Implementing mechanistic-empirical (M-E) pavement design approaches in practice, the need that the pavement performance level related to the limit state function such as fatigue cracking or rutting can be controlled considering inherent variabilities associated with design input parameters and systematic bias of the design procedure is being more considerably presented. This paper presents the practical applications of principal reliability concepts to the M-E pavement design and a reliability-based design approach for the M-E flexible pavement design using overall and partial safety factors to design a pavement cross-section satisfying performance threshold with a target reliability during its intended design life. This paper shows that the pavement sections designed with a reliability level using AASHTO 93 design guide don’t have uniform structural reliability in terms of the mechanistic distress of fatigue cracking and the uniform reliability can be achieved by the a reliability-based design approach using overall and partial safety factors.
