Life cycle cost comparison of flexible and rigid pavements under different traffic, soil and environmental conditions

Date

2023-12-04

Author

Deniz, Murat

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The maintenance and rehabilitation activities have important roles in maintaining the serviceability of the transportation network. Their costs have a significant effect on the total cost of pavements, which is comprised of agency (initial construction, maintenance, and rehabilitation) and user costs. Therefore, Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) is used to optimize the cost-effectiveness of the pavement investment. In this thesis, the LCCA on flexible and rigid pavements, overall 108 cases, considering three design traffic levels (W18), three soil conditions (MR), three reliability levels (R), and two analysis periods (t) are implemented based on two design methods: Türkiye General Directorate of Highway and AASHTO (1993). Although the results indicated that the initial cost of the flexible pavement is typically cheaper than the other, the rigid pavement is eventually more advantageous according to LCCA. The only condition where the flexible pavement overall cost is similar to the rigid one is under low-traffic and high-strength soil conditions. Another significant finding is that an increase in W18, R, t, or a decrease in MR values results in higher initial and overall costs of both pavements independent of the design method. Besides, the sensitivity analysis on discount rates revealed that an increase in this rate brings the overall cost of flexible and rigid pavements closer to each other. Moreover, to eliminate the limitation of this study considering the number of cases, a program is specifically developed as part of this thesis to enable users to define their design strategies and variables to optimize their designs.

Subject Keywords

Rigid pavements, Flexible pavements, Life cycle cost analysis, Sensitivity analysis, Discount rate

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/106421

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis