CAN WE BUILD PERPETUAL PAVEMENTS?

or
can we build pavements that fulfill our expectations

Andr A.A. Molenaar*

*

Emeritus professor Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands; a.a.a.molenaar@tudelft.nl

(corresponding author).

Abstract
In this paper problems related to building perpetual pavements are discussed. It will be shown
that not only the average quality of the pavement layers and materials is important but that
variability in material quality and layer thicknesses are key parameters ensuring a pavement to be
perpetual. Ample attention will be paid to how variability builds up when constructing asphalt
concrete layers and what the consequences are of these variations. Then the paper will discuss
how these variations can be kept under control.
Attention is not only paid to variations in the quality of asphalt concrete layers. Attention will
also be paid to the effect polymer modifications can have on extending the fatigue life of asphalt
layers and it will be shown that significant savings in asphalt layer thickness can be made when
using the right polymer modification.
Making unbound granular base courses perpetual is also a topic that is discussed in the paper. It
will be shown that compaction is key factor, next to moisture content and gradation, in realizing
a perpetual base course.
Finally it will be shown that contractual aspects can greatly affect the realization of a perpetual
pavement.

1.

INTRODUCTION

Perpetual pavements, meaning pavements with a long lifetime, are especially needed for very
busy major roads in urban areas simply because traffic intensities are so high during the entire
day that the time slots available for doing maintenance are very short. Actually road authorities
are looking for solutions such that the number and duration of the maintenance moments are
reduced to a minimum in order to limit the hinder to traffic as much as possible. The question
however is whether we are able not only to design but also to build such pavements. Furthermore
we should know about the factors that are making building such pavements difficult or even
impossible because this knowledge can help us in finding solutions to overcome these problems.
The prospects of being able to build perpetual pavements are a bit gloomy because quite often
the pavements we build are not really giving the service we were expecting. Too often, the
pavement life is less than originally anticipated and too often major maintenance has to be
applied at a too early stage. Therefore this author believes that we first have to find out why
pavements are failing so often too early before we can start thinking about building perpetual
pavements. If we have found the reasons for this premature failure then we have to determine
whether we can come up with solutions for this problem.
To the opinion of this author, there are some reasons why pavements do not give the service they
are expected to give and why they need too early maintenance. The first reason is that the
warrantee period that is agreed in contracts is too short. In our private life we will seldom buy a
product on which no warrantee is given. We consider such a product as not trustful. Car
manufacturers have fully understand the necessity of giving a good warrantee. Some producers
even give a warrantee of 7 years while all producers will call their cars to the garage if some
unexpected defect appears. Such a client friendly attitude we dont see in the pavement field.
Unfortunately, warrantee periods for pavements are much shorter. Quite often a warrantee period
of only one year is given and in some cases a 3 years warrantee period applies. There are
however also cases where no warrantee period applies at all. Although this author has
participated in the pavement industry for 40 years he never managed to understand why clients
seem not to be able to enforce sufficiently long warrantee periods and why contractors seem not
to be willing to accept extended warrantee periods.
The second reason why pavements are too often not performing to expectation is, according to
this author, the fact that the contractor is taking far too less risk when building a pavement. In
many contracts, the contractor has to build what is agreed upon in the contract and he has to
comply with specifications set to the required quality of the materials laid, layer thicknesses and
so on. Complying to the specifications however does not necessarily imply that the pavement
will perform as expected. When it doesnt cases the contractor can easily defend himself by
saying I did what you ask me to do so dont blame me for disappointing performance of the
pavement I built. If contracts would have been made such that the contractor would be much
more responsible for what he was building, implying that he would take a much greater risk, he
would act pro-active rather then re-active. Such a pro-active attitude implies that he would do
everything to solve problems before they even could occur rather then re-act on them when they
do occur.

The third reason is that contactors are not really given an incentive to produce a better product.
Contracts are awarded on the lowest price and not on the highest lifetime/cost ratio. Furthermore
a bonus to the contractor when the pavement performs better than anticipated is rarely awarded.
All this implies that there is not really an incentive for contractors to produce a better product
than the minimum required which immediately implies that some parts of the constructed road
will most likely be substandard (one cannot control each and every mm of a pavement).
This author is of the opinion that the chances that the client really gets what he paid for will not
be high when the conditions mentioned above are not improved.
Based on his 40 years experience, this author is of the opinion that the main reasons for
unsatisfactory pavement performance are the following.

Too low average pavement lifetime.

Too high variability in layer quality and layer thickness.
Not paying attention to important details.
Not collecting important information.
Ignoring important information.

In the remainder of this paper an example will be given first of all to illustrate the effects on
pavement performance of the last three mentioned items. The main body of the pavement
however will discuss extensively the effects of the first two mentioned items. It will be shown
how a too low average quality and especially a too high variability negatively affect pavement
life and how they reduce the chance on being able to build a perpetual pavement.

2. EFFECTS OF NOT COLLECTING CQ IGNORING

INFORMATION ON PAVEMENT LIFE AND PERFORMANCE

IMPORTANT

The author has been involved in a road project in Africa where a pavement had to be built in an
area with an annual rainfall of 800 1000 mm per year which precipitated in a wet season
running from November to March. The specific problems that occurred during and immediately
after construction was the appearance of longitudinal cracking in hard shoulder. Figure 1 shows
the type of cracking that was observed. Extensive investigations showed that the longitudinal
cracks most probably were due to shrinkage swell of the material under the shoulder. This was
initially believed to be a bit remarkable because the borrow pit material which was used to
construct the unbound base was initially classified as an A-2-4 or A-2-6 soil and in the materials
report prepared for this project there was no mentioning of swelling and or shrinking material.
However the report did quote the geological report in which it was mentioned that the schist
derived from sedimentary material is largely composed of flaky mica and quartz. However the
consequences of the presence of Mica in the soil to be retrieved from the borrow pits was not
mentioned and discussed in the materials report .
It is remarkable that this presence of Mica did not ring alarm bells because presence of Mica
implies that the material is highly resilient and difficult to compact.
The next thing that was alarming was that although Proctor compaction tests were done, no effort
was made to compare the gradation of the material after Proctor compaction with the gradation

of the material before Proctor compaction. Making such a comparison would immediately have
indicated whether or not the material is prone to crushing during compaction.
That crushing was a problem appeared when material taken from test pits was analyzed. It
appeared that most of the material was classified as A-4 or even A-6 clearly indicating that it had
degraded from a coarse to a fine graded materials. The analyses also showed a significant
increase in the amount of fines making the material sensitive for shrinkage and swell.
The reason for crushing of the material was over-compaction. Because the material contained
Mica, it was very difficult to achieve to prescribed density levels. They could only be achieved
by hammering the soil with heavy vibratory rollers which caused the material to crush.
In conclusion, three things went wrong. The indication that Mica was present was not taken into
account. Furthermore the crushing resistance of the material was not investigated and the swell
and shrinkage properties of the fines were not investigated. Ignoring and not collecting important
information was the main reason for the unexpected premature damage that had occurred and
which made the pavement not perform as was expected.

Figure 1. Longitudinal cracking in the hard shoulder

3. STRENGTH, COSTS, AND EFFECTS OF VARIABILITY

It is a well-known fact that the stronger we build our pavements, the less maintenance they
require. However building a stronger pavements also implies larger investmenst. If pavement
strength is related to construction and maintenance cost a trend line like the one shown in figure
2 is obtained. From this trend line one can conclude that there is some optimum strength value
from a cost point of view.
Pavements however never have a constant strength. The strength over a certain length of
pavement will vary because of a variation in layer thickness and material characteristics. So the
strength of a certain pavement section is not a constant but will show some kind of distribution.
This distribution however will affect the total costs as is schematically indicated in figure 3.

From this figure one can easily conclude that pavements which show a large amount of variation
in their strength are more costly than pavements which only show a limited amount of variation.

Figure 2. Construction, maintenance and total costs as a function of pavement strength.

Figure 3. Effect of variability in strength on total costs.

However, the decision on the pavement structure to be built does not only depend on the
construction and maintenance costs. Especially for heavily trafficked roads, perpetual pavements
are needed simply because of the fact that maintenance is hardly possible without creating a huge
amount of hinder to the road users. Experience in the Netherlands has shown that public fully
understands that roads need to be maintained but they do not understand why maintenance
activities have to be done over and over again. Public does accept that a certain road is only
limited available for a short period of time because of maintenance, but then they also expect that
the road is fully operational again for a long period of time after maintenance works have been
completed. Figure 4 shows the pavement performance people is ready to accept and which
performance is not acceptable to them.

Figure 4. Pavements with a long life showing less variability are favored by public.
If pavements perform like indicated by the white curve, then maintenance needs to be performed
regularly over relative short sections. However, when pavements perform according to the
orange line then the number of maintenance moments is far less and when maintenance needs to
be performed it can be done over a large section making planning and execution of maintenance
activities much more effective.
An example which proves this to be the case is given in figure 5. This figure shows that 10% of
the porous asphalt wearing courses as applied in the Netherlands are failing within the first 7
years after placement and that 90% of all sections fail after 16 years. One will agree that this is a
wide time window and that it indicates quite some variability in performance. A study was made
to investigate what the effect would be of limiting the amount of variation. The effects of having
10% failed sections after 9 instead of 7 years was investigated and the results showed that this
minor change in variability resulted in a reduction of maintenance costs of 20% and a reduction
in delay hours due to maintenance with 10%.

Figure 5. Effect of reduced variability on maintenance costs and delay hours due to maintenance.
A reduction with 10% in delay hours also brings a major environmental benefit since because of
that cars will use less petrol and will produce less fumes and air pollution. Especially reduction
of the truck delay hours is beneficial because trucks do have a far bigger environmental impact
then construction and maintaining a road does. This is shown in figure 6.
In conclusion one can state that building pavements with a longer life and less variability will
reduce maintenance costs, delay hours and pollution caused by traffic.

Figure 6. Contribution of truck and car traffic as well as construction and maintenance to the
environmental loading caused by a road traffic system.

4. HOW DOES VARIABILITY BUILD UP

When producing and laying asphalt mixtures, variation in the composition and mixture
properties can build up at various moment during the production and laying process. It starts
already when weighing the different ingredients and heating them to the required temperature.
This becomes more critical when large amounts of moist aggregates have to be dried and heated
or when large amounts of RAP at ambient temperature and with a certain moisture content are
added to the mixture. In a study performed at the Delft University of Technology [1], the
temperature of the mixture prepared with a double barrel drum mixer was measured. In this
mixture 50% RAP at ambient temperature and around 4% moisture was added to the virgin
materials. The concept of the double barrel drum is that virgin aggregates are heated in the inner
drum and then discharged in the outer drum where also the RAP, virgin filler and virgin bitumen
are added. Because of the fact that a large amount of moist RAP is added, the virgin aggregates
have to be preheated to very high temperatures, temperatures of 400 500 oC are not uncommon,
in order to arrive to the desired mixing temperature of 180 oC. The question of course is whether
a homogeneous temperature distribution is obtained given the short mixing times of 30 40
seconds. If such a homogeneous temperature distribution is not achieved then the chances that
the RAP has fully blended with the virgin materials are small.
Figure 7 shows the double drum and the location at which the infrared temperature
measurements were made.

Figure 7. Double barrel drum and location where the temperature measurements were made [1].
Figure 8 shows a thermo-graphic image of the asphalt mixture when it was falling on the
conveyor belt on its way to the silo. Superheated particles can be seen in the picture as well as
rather cool material which most probably is the RAP that was added to the mixture.
Figure 9 shows how the temperature was changing during a 30 minute period (1800 seconds) in
which approximately 250 tons of mixture was produced. The figure nicely shows that the
production temperature was initially too low but then became too high. This is because the plant
operator increased the temperature based on the information he was getting from the person who
was checking the temperature of the mixture on the conveyor belt by means of a thermometer.
These measurements are not continuous measurements but are done every now and then. The
figure shows that the mixing temperature more or less stabilized later on but that the temperature
of the mixture was not becoming homogeneous. The bottom part of the figure shows that the
temperature was not only varying in time (time is the horizontal axis) but also to some extent
over the width of the conveyor belt.
The conclusions of this investigation were as follows:
-

superheated aggregates are still visible indicating a non-perfect temperature blending;

a fair amount of variation in mixture temperature continues to occur during the
production process;
continuous temperature measurements using infrared equipment will give a better control
on the mixture temperature and should therefore replace spot measurements using
thermometers.

Figure 8. Thermo graphic image of the material falling on the conveyor belt [1].

Figure 9. Temperature variations during a 30 minutes production period [1].

Having discussed the temperature inhomogeneity that can occur at the mixing plant, we will now
discuss the inhomogeneity that occurs when laying the mixture. Figure 10 shows the
measurements that were taken at a specific site [1]. In order to increase homogeneity, the client
demanded that a feeder between the truck and the paver was going to be used. Furthermore
using a feeder would avoid contact between the truck and the paver and would guarantee a
constant flow of material from the feeder to the hopper of the paver in this way avoiding the need
of the paver to stop because of not enough material being available. It was believed that all this
would help in getting a more homogeneous quality of the mixture.

Figure 10. Temperature measurements during a paving operation [1].

Figure 11 and figure 12 show the results obtained during paving an 8 m wide lane with 45 mm of
a binder course material. The speed of the paver was 3.5 m/min. Figure 10 shows that the
temperature varied between 118 and 158 oC. It should be mentioned that these temperatures are
surface temperatures and that the temperature in the middle of the asphalt layer will probably be
higher. Figure 11 shows that the temperatures varied between 125 and 163 oC. Both figures
further more show that the temperature varied quite a bit not only in the longitudinal direction of
the section (the horizontal axis of the bottom figure) but also in the transversal direction (the
vertical axis of the bottom figure). Figure 12 furthermore shows some kind of sinusoidal
variation in the temperature which, as is shown in the figure, could be related to the various truck
loads entering the hopper of the paver.
All in all the conclusion is that the temperature distribution of the paved mat was far from
homogeneous which would have consequences for compaction because a hot mixture is far
better to compact than a cool mixture.

Figure 11. Surface temperatures of a paved mat.

Figure 12. Surface temperatures of a paved mat.

Figure 13 shows the results of temperature measurements AND roller pass measurements on
another project.

Figure 13. Surface temperature and number of roller passes of a paved mat.
Figure 13 shows some worrying results. The upper part of the figure shows that temperatures
went down to 100 oC at the location where the paver had to stop because of the fact that no
trucks were arriving at the site. It will be obvious that this area is prone to premature damage
since it will not be possible to compact the material properly at such low temperatures. The
problem however significantly increases when we also consider the plot which shows the
number of roller passes. Although rolling was done by experienced operators, the picture shows
that a very uneven roller pass distribution was obtained. There is an area which received as many
as 20 passes (the area with the pink color in the upper left hand part of the picture) and there are
areas were only a few roller passes were applied (the blue colored areas at the bottom of the
picture). Figure 13 clearly shows that there are locations where the temperature was low AND
which only received a few roller passes. The question now is how all this affects the quality of
the material as laid.

5. EFFECTS OF VARIABILITY IN TEMPERATURE AND COMPACTION

EFFORT ON THE QUALITY OF THE LAID MIXTURE
At the Delft University of Technology a study [2] was made on the factors influencing the
compaction cq void content of porous asphalt wearing courses as a function of the mixture
temperature, mixture composition and compaction effort. The model that resulted from that study
is shown in figure 14.

Figure 14. Compaction model for porous asphalt concrete.

For the sake of completeness it should be mentioned that porous asphalt concrete is currently
used on all major highways in the Netherlands for noise reducing purposes. Figure 14 shows the
factors that play a role in the compaction of this type of wearing course but it should be
mentioned that the temperature of the mixture as well as the compaction effort are the most
important parameters. This model has been applied on the temperature and roller passes data
shown in figure 13 and the results are shown in figure 15. Figure 15 shows that the occurring
combinations of temperature and number of roller passes will result in an area with a void
content of 18% as well as in an area where the void content is 28%. The later area is the area
where the mixture temperature was low and where only a few roller passes were applied.
One of course might argue that this is just an example of an application of the model and one
might wonder whether such a wide range in void contents really occur in practice. Because of
this, figure 16 is added to this paper which shows the void contents as determined on an actually
constructed porous asphalt layer. The figure shows that the predicted void contents also occur in
practice and furthermore that the variation in void content over the width of the paved lane as
well as over the longitudinal direction of the paved lane is quite high. The figure also shows that
the variation in void content over the width of the paved lane is as high as the variation over the
length of the paved lane!

Figure 15. Effect of temperature and number of roller passes on the void content.

Figure 16. Variation in void content over the width and length of a porous asphalt concrete layer
[2].

Also the influence of the void content on the stiffness and tensile strength of the mixture that was
produced in the project from which figure 16 originated, was investigated. The influence of the
void content on the mixture stiffness, as determined with repeated load indirect tension tests, is
shown in figure 17.

Figure 17. Influence of the void content on the stiffness of a porous asphalt concrete mixture [2].
If the information from figure 17 is applied on the data shown in figure 15, then figure 18 is
obtained. Figure 18 clearly shows that the area with the high void contents has a significantly
lower stiffness than the well compacted area. Furthermore the figure shows that the area with a
void content of 18% has a tensile strength ft which is 1.4 times higher than that of the area where
the void content is 28%. Information on how this difference in tensile strength was determined
will not be given here; it is sufficient to say that there is a strong relation between the stiffness of
the material and its tensile strength. For further information about this topic the reader is referred
to [3].
It needs no explanation to understand that areas with high void contents, low stiffness and a low
tensile strength are prone for showing premature damage.
The question now is what kind of damage will result from too low compaction levels. It is a
well-known fact that raveling is the dominant defect type of this very open wearing course
mixture. Figure 19 shows what is meant by raveling of the pavement surface.
By means of an extensive study on the performance of porous asphalt concrete wearing courses
in the Netherland, researchers of the Delft University of Technology [4] were able to develop a
model that predicts the amount of raveling 8 years after construction. The model was developed
by using field data and by applying Artificial Neural Networks. This research showed that there

are two major factors that influence the resistance to raveling of porous asphalt concrete being
the void content and the bitumen content. These effects are shown in figures 20 and 21.

Figure 18. Stiffness and strength in relation to void content.

Figure 19. Raveling of porous asphalt concrete.

Figure 20. Influence of the void content on the amount of raveling of porous asphalt concrete 8
years after construction [4].

Figure 21. Influence of the bitumen content on the amount of raveling of porous asphalt concrete
8 years after construction [4].

Figures 20 and 21 clearly show that porous asphalt wearing courses having void contents of
higher than 19% and bitumen contents lower than 4% are prone to significant raveling. It should
be mentioned that the bitumen content in a porous asphalt layer is quite often not equally
distributed over the entire height of the layer. Very often the bitumen content in the upper part of
the layer is lower than that of the lower part and the bitumen content in the upper part appeared
to be quite often less than 3.8% by weight. This is because of drainage of the binder due to
gravity. No surprise that quite a number of porous asphalt wearing courses suffer from early
damage.
The lesson we have learned so far is that building a perpetual pavement is not as simple as it may
look. Because of a large number of reasons, the construction process might not proceed as
desired resulting in locally weak areas which are prone to premature maintenance. These areas
might occur even when the quality control performed on such pavements did not give rise to
doubt the quality of the layer.
One might say at this moment this is all interesting but we dont build porous asphalt concrete
layers so our problems will be less severe. In order to be able to answer such a statement, this
author made an analysis of the effects of a too high void content and a too hard bitumen on the
quality of a dense mixture. The results of this analysis are shown in figure 22.

Figure 22. Effects of variations in void content and binder properties on the mechanical
characteristics of a dense mixture.
Figure 22 clearly shows that void content as well as bitumen properties have a large effect on the
mechanical properties of dense mixtures. The data in the figure also imply that keeping the
variability under control is required to obtain a mixture with homogeneous characteristics.

6. METHODS TO REDUCE THE PROBABILITY

VARIABILITY IN CHARACTERISTICS

OF

FAILURE

AND

Figure 23 shows the concept of designing structures with a certain probability of failure (P failure)
cq a certain probability of survival (P=surv). The probability of survival can be written as:
Psurv = 1 - Pfailure

Figure 23. Methods to affect the probability of survival.

The figure shows that the probability of survival, so getting a pavement which has a higher
chance that it will perform to expectations, can be achieved by increasing the strength of the
materials involved without changing the variability or by decreasing the variability without
changing the average strength of the materials. Although not shown in this figure, similar effects
are obtained if the stresses in the pavement are decreased by increasing e.g. the layer thicknesses
or by reducing the variation in stress levels by limiting the layer thickness variation and the
variation in stiffness characteristics. Building a thicker pavement or using a stronger material
however is a costly option; reducing the variability is a much more cost effective option because
it means doing the same things in a more accurate way and giving attention to details.
Reducing the variability in asphalt mixture properties can be achieved by using a shuttle buggy
(figure 24) between the truck and the paver. The purpose of this device is to remix the mixture
such that both the composition and temperature gets much more homogenized resulting in a
lower variability of the mixture properties.
A second tool which is important is the intelligent compactor (figure 24). Such a device monitors
the homogeneity in compaction effort and it monitors the areas which are covered by the roller.
The device shown in figure 24 is based on measuring accelerations and it in fact monitors the

response of the entire pavement. This most not the most effective way of measuring the
compaction homogeneity of the asphalt wearing and base course. Most probably a method which
is based on measuring density using nuclear principles is to be preferred. Such a method is under
development at Troxler.

Figure 24. Reducing variability can be achieved by using shuttle buggies and intelligent
compaction.
Reducing variability however starts already when storing the raw materials (figure 25). Using
sufficient bins to store the various aggregate fractions is one thing. Covering the bins by a shed
to prevent the aggregates from getting wet and preventing overfilling of the bins resulting
aggregate fractions to get mixed up is another thing that can help significantly in keeping the
variation in mixture composition and so in mixture quality under control. These things are just a
matter of paying good attention to details and will hardly add to the costs.

7. BUILDING LONG LIFE PAVEMENTS

Reducing variability is not enough to build long life pavements, in order to achieve this also the
average pavement life needs to be increased. It is a well-know fact that modifying asphalt
mixtures by means of modifiers does increase the resistance to permanent deformation and
fatigue cracking. In many cases only the wearing course is modified to give it a better resistance
to permanent deformation but it is very advantageous also to modify the base course with
polymers. A very nice example of successfully modifying the entire asphalt thickness with
polymers is the pavement structure that is used for runways and taxiways at Amsterdams
Schiphol airport. Originally these pavements were made of a 60 cm thick lean concrete base on
top of which 27 cm of traditional base and wearing course mixtures were applied. Because these

Figure 25. Covering the bins with a shed would help in reducing the variability in mixture
properties.
pavements suffered from transverse shrinkage cracks having crack spacings between 15 and 45
m. Because of the resulting wide crack openings, particles broke loose from the cracked edges
which in turn increased the chance on foreign object damage to aircraft. Therefore the pavements
were redesigned starting in the early 1990s resulting in using 20 cm of polymer modified
asphalt on top of the lean concrete base together with pre-cracking by means of cutting joints in
the lean concrete base. Since then the transverse cracking problem has been minimized. This
successful application of polymer modifications was then also adopted at other large
international airports where the specifications for the modified mixtures were copied from the
Schiphol specifications.
In 2008 a large research project was initiated by Kraton in which the Delft University
participated by means of testing asphalt mixtures modified by different types of polymers
supplied by Kraton [5]. Figure 26 gives an overview of the mixtures tested. On these mixtures
stiffness testing was performed as well as fatigue testing and the fatigue tests resulted in a so
called endurance limit which is the strain level below which no fatigue damage will develop. The
most important results of these tests are shown in figure 27.
The data shown in figure 27 were then used in the analysis of a pavement structure, the
characteristics of which are shown in figure 28. The objective of these analyses was to determine
which minimum asphalt thickness would be needed to arrive at the endurance limit. The results
of these analyses are shown in figure 29.

Figure 26. Mixtures tested at the Delft University of Technology as part of the research program
initiated by Kraton.

Figure 27. Endurance limit for two polymer modified and one reference mixture.

Figure 28. Analyzed pavement structures.

Figure 29. Pavement design analyses results.

Figure 29 shows that significant savings can be made in asphalt thickness when using certain
types of polymer modifications. The results shown in the figure also imply that almost
everlasting pavements can be built if the asphalt thickness is not reduced. Not reducing the
asphalt thickness might be needed to provide sufficient cover for the base and subbase to
avoid permanent deformation to occur in those layers.
The conclusion of this research therefore was that long lasting pavements can indeed be built
by modifying asphalt mixtures with the right type of modifier.

8. BUILDING PERPETUAL GRANULAR BASE COURSES

Until now the attention in this paper is focused on asphalt concrete layers and asphalt
concrete mixtures. Many pavements however have base and subbase layers which are made
of unbound granular materials. The question now is whether we also can build perpetual
unbound layers knowing that such layers show a much higher degree of variability than
asphalt concrete layers do.
An example of the variability that might occur in unbound layers is shown in figure 30 which
pictures the variation in degree of compaction of a particular unbound base.

Figure 30. Variation in degree of compaction of a particular base course layer.

Figure 30 shows that base course layers suffer from the same problem as asphalt concrete
layers do being the large variation in degree of compaction. Although not shown in the
picture, granular layers also suffer from the fact that the gradation might vary significantly

from location to location. All this of course has an effect on the performance of the base
course.
Triaxial testing (figure 31) has proven to be an excellent way in determining the effects of
moisture, degree of compaction and gradation on the stiffness and resistance to shear failure
and permanent deformation of granular materials.

Figure 31. Triaxial testing, an excellent way to characterize unbound granular materials.
Figure 32 shows how the cohesion and angle of internal friction of an unbound material is
affected by gradation and degree of compaction. The figure shows that a higher compaction
level results in improved cohesion, like a higher fines content does, but that the angle of
internal friction is hardly affected by gradation and compaction level.
The amount of permanent deformation that occurs in a granular base depends on how the
stresses are compared to the stresses at failure. It appeared that if the ratio applied vertical
stress at a particular confinement level : vertical stress at failure at the same confinement
level is less than 0.35, only a very limited amount of permanent deformation will occur [6].
It has already been mentioned that gradation is another important factor controlling the
resistance to permanent deformation. This is clearly shown in figure 33 which shows the
relationship between the vertical compressive strain at the top of the subgrade and the
number of load repetitions to 4% permanent deformation of the base layer. The figure clearly
indicates that the gradation plays an important role and that it is important to limit the amount
of variation in the gradation of the material. This asks for proper workmanship during
placement and compaction of granular base layers.

Figure 32. Effect of gradation and compaction level on the shear resistance of a granular
material [6].

Figure 33. Relation between the vertical compressive strain at the top of a base course and
the number of load repetitions to 4% permanent deformation and its dependency on
gradation.

Proper compaction also has a positive effect on the resilient modulus of unbound base layers;
this is perfectly shown in figure 34 which indicates that increasing the degree of compaction
from 97% to 105% results in an increase of resilient modulus with a factor of 1.5.

Figure 34. Effect of compaction on the resilient modulus of a granular material [6].
All in all the conclusion with respect to building perpetual unbound base courses is that, next
to gradation and moisture content, compaction is a key issue and every effort should be made
to get a high as possible and a as homogeneous as possible compaction level of the unbound
base. Intelligent compaction (figure 35 and figure 36) also plays in this case an important role
especially in getting an as homogeneously compacted base course as possible. But we should
keep in mind that using such compactors should always be combined by regular
measurements on density and moisture content.

Figure 35. Ways to get base courses with a high and homogeneous quality [7].

Figure 36. Example of the output generated by an intelligent compactor [7].

9. CONTRACTUAL ASPECTS
Contracts can be written in such a way that one will only get what is required as a minimum
or the contract is written in such a way that the producer will do everything to produce the
best. The traditional recipe based contracts are examples of contracts that will result in the
minimum needed while design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) contracts are stimulants to
provide the best possible.
The only way, at least to the opinion of this author, to get the best out of a recipe based
contract is to extend the warrantee period. This however implies that the contract should be
performance based although recipe aspects can still be included. As mentioned before, the
warrantee period in the Netherlands has been extended from 3 to 7 years and it is carefully
described in those contracts with an extended warrantee what type of defects as well as their
severity and extent are allowed after 7 years. This implies that contract is in fact a
performance based contract. However, in order to ensure that the contractor is not proposing
wild solutions, recipe aspects still are part of the contract.
The best way, at least to the opinion of this author, to get the best possible is awarding
DBFM contracts which cover a period of e.g. 30 years. In the Netherlands such contracts are
given for large projects. The idea is that the contractor takes full responsibility for the design
and maintenance and has full freedom of choice in the materials and types of structures to be
used. In order to ensure that he gets what he wants the client evaluate the proposals on the
following aspects:
-

hinder to traffic during the construction period;

hinder to traffic during maintenance periods;
environmental aspects.

The client has defined his wishes for each of the three aspects and when the proposal is not
fully complying with the wishes, an artificial amount of money is added to the bid. This
implies e.g. that proposals that include the use of environmentally hazardous products that
give a long life to the pavement will not have a chance to be accepted because they will score
very bad on the environmental wish although they might score good on the traffic hinder
wishes. The total bid is therefore the sum of the actual bid and the sums added to the bid
because of not completely fulfilling the wishes. The project will be awarded to the one
with the lowest total bid.
In order to ensure that the project will not become too costly, the client has set a maximum to
the amount of money he is willing to pay.
Furthermore the client has carefully specified the extent and severity of damage allowed.
In the contract the number of times the contractor is allowed to do maintenance and the
duration of the maintenance periods is specified. In cases maintenance has to be done at
moments which are not agreed upon in the contract (e.g. urgent repairs) the contractor has to
pay a lane rental fee which is in fact a penalty because the pavement is not performing as
agreed upon. These fees/penalties are very high as is shown in figure 35.

If however less maintenance is needed during the contract period than was anticipated, the
contractor receives a bonus because by realizing less maintenance needs he is reducing
hinder that traffic would experience because of maintenance works.
Finally the pavement should be at a certain condition at the end of the contractual period. If
these conditions levels are not met, then the contractor should pay himself for the works
needed to get the pavement to the desired condition.

Figure 37. Lane rental fees/penalties for performing not scheduled maintenance.
The effect these types of contracts have on the attitude of the contractor is enormous. His
attitude changed from re-active (I do what I am told to do) to pro-active (how can I fulfill in
the best way the wishes of my client). Furthermore contractors became immediately more
quality conscious and they became much more aware of the risks involved which they now
have to carry themselves instead of leaving them on the clients side. As a result of this,
contractors are spending much more money on research on arriving to products which have a
long life, are fail safe and are easy to apply.
This author believes that this type of contracts and this type of approach is a boast to
realizing perpetual pavements since this is in the own interest of the contractor.

10. CAN WE BUILD PERPETUAL PAVEMENTS

The title of this paper is can we build perpetual pavements. Now, at the end of the paper
we have come to the point that this question should be answered. From the material presented
in this paper it has become clear that a perpetual pavement can only be obtained if a lot of

attention is given to pavement construction. It has become clear that we need to achieve a
high and homogeneous quality of the pavement layers which implies a.o. the following.

Proper storage of the aggregates for asphalt mixtures including using sheds on the storage
bins to protect the aggregates from getting wet and using sufficient amounts of bins
allowing proper fractionizing of the aggregates.
Strict temperature control at the mixing plant avoiding too high and too low mixing
temperatures to occur.
Using shuttle buggies and intelligent compactors on site to ensure the asphalt mixture is
as homogeneous in temperature and composition when being laid and to ensure that an as
homogeneous compaction is achieved.
Selection of the right polymer modification for asphalt mixtures will certainly help in
getting a much longer life out of the asphalt layers.
Strict control of gradation, moisture content and using intelligent compactors to ensure a
high and constant quality of the granular base course.
Enforcing longer warrantee periods and setting up contracts in such a way that the
contractor is made much more responsible for the pavement as built.
Paying a bonus when the pavement is performing better than expected.

REFERENCES
1. Mohajeri, M.; Hot mix asphalt recycling. PhD thesis Delft University of Technology;
Delft, 2014 (to be published in December 2014).
2. Molenaar, A.A.A.; A.J.J. Meerkerk; M.Miradi and T. van der Steen. Performance of
porous asphalt concrete. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of
Asphalt Technologists; Savannah, 2006.
3. Li, N.; Asphalt mixture fatigue testing; influence of test type and specimen size. PhD
thesis Delft University of Technology; Delft, 2013.
4. Miradi, M.; Knowledge discovery and pavement performance. PhD thesis Delft
University of Technology; Delft, 2009.
5. Molenaar, A.A.A.; E.J. Scholten; M.F.C. van de Ven; M. Poot and N. Li. SBS polymer
modified base course mixtures for heavy duty pavements. Paper presented at the 14th
AAPA Conference; Sydney, 2011.
6. Van Niekerk, A.A.; Mechanical behavior of granular bases and sub-bases. PhD thesis
Delft University of Technology; Delft, 2002.
7. kesson, F.; Dynapac compaction analyzer and optimizer. Power point presentation at
www.intelligentcompaction.com/downloads/Presentation/Akesson_Dynapac%20IC.pdf

The PhD theses of the Delft University can be downloaded via

www.citg.tudelft.nl/en/about-faculty/departments/structural-engineering/sections/pavement-engineering/publications/dissertations/