Construction Management of a Small-Scale Accelerated Pavement Testing Facility

Research in accelerated pavement testing (APT) facilities has traditionally focused on the pavement performance such as rutting and fatigue cracking, but documentation on construction management and information of the actual pavement construction quality is limited. There are typically four critical factors that need to be considered to achieve the best possible outcome in construction: cost, schedule, construction process, and quality control, and management. With the objective of developing guidelines for planning and executing construction of a small-scale APT facility, this paper presents a case study documenting and evaluating the construction process and construction management efforts of two sensor-instrumented hot mix asphalt pavement test sections built in a small-scale APT facility. The focus of the experiment was to study bottom-up fatigue cracking of the flexible pavement structure. The presented information and lessons learned serve as a template and guide for agencies pursuing this type of research and pavement construction.