NCHRP reports explore water, climate impacts on pavements

The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) has released two reports exploring pavement performance, one on water and a second concerning climate.

The first NCHRP product are guidelines for Limiting Damage to Flexible and Composite Pavements due to the Presence of Water, although the authors admit the best practices highlighted in the Guidelines, like first identifying the source of the water, are not necessarily thought of as innovative, and the true goal of the product is to educate transportation agencies.

“None of the best practices recommended in the Guidelines are new or unique. Accordingly, the only real barriers to use throughout the country are informing highway agencies about the availability of the information and providing training and education in a manner that demonstrates that moisture damage is a major problem and advises areas where highway agency personnel could improve their practices.”

The second report, Mechanistic Empirical Pavement Design Model: Enhancements of Climatic Inputs, explores the effects temperature, precipitation, cloud cover, freezing index, and other environmental conditions can have on pavement performance.