REQUIRED PROPERTIES FOR ZERO-MAINTENANCE FLEXIBLE PAVEMENTS

The Federal Highway Administration has initiated and sponsored research aimed at producing pavements that require minimum maintenance. This paper reviews material from that research which attempted to identify material properties that will provide optimal performance in flexible zero-maintenance pavements. Identified as important for flexible pavements were three basic distresses: fatigue cracking, rutting, and low temperature cracking. This paper provides: a brief review of the analytical models capable of modeling distresses which were selected to evaluate the effect of material properties on the production of distress; a review of the properties and the range of material properties and the pavement characteristics evaluated; and a discussion of the ranges of material properties and pavement characteristics required to produce zero-maintenance pavements.