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KENPAVE ANALYSIS FOR LOW VOLUME ROADS WITH REDUCED RESILIENT

MODULUS VALUES

Conference Paper · June 2018

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Priyanka B A B. M. Lekha
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 2nd Conference on Transportation Systems Engineering and Management
NIT Tiruchirappalli, India, May 1-2, 2015.

Paper Id: 140

KENPAVE ANALYSIS FOR LOW VOLUME ROADS WITH REDUCED

RESILIENT MODULUS VALUES
Priyanka, B A1., Lekha, B M2., Goutham, Sarang3 and Ravi Shankar, A U4
1
Research Scholar, NITK Surathkal, priyankabiluve@gmail.com,
2
Research Scholar, NITK Surathkal, lekhabm@gmail.com,
3
Research Scholar, NITK Surathkal, gouthamsarang@gmail.com,
4
Professor, NITK Surathkal, aurshankar@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Premature failure of pavements is a serious problem faced in every country, but its reason
may vary from case to case. Most of the design practices are based on the assumption that the
subgrade lies approximately 500mm above the high flood level. But in many parts of the
country, rainfall is very high which makes a portion or sometimes the entire structure of the
pavement in submerged condition. The problem is more critical for low volume roads, where
generally pavements are constructed in the available land without providing embankment.
The Indian Roads Congress (IRC) provides pavement design sections for different cases, in
which Resilient Modulus (MR) of pavement layers is an important factor. In this study,
critical cases of reduction in MR values due to the submersion of pavement are considered.
Analysis is conducted in KENPAVE software package for different subgrade and traffic
conditions suggested by IRC SP 72 for low volume roads, assuming 25%, 50% and 75%
reduction in MR values. From the results, increase in stress and strain values and drastic
reduction in fatigue and rutting lives are observed for all critical cases. Damage ratio is the
ratio of actual load repetitions to the allowed load repetitions and a value greater than one for
this indicates pavement failure. The analysis show that, the pavement structures for
conventional cases fail when the MR values are decreased and hence design has to be
modified in these situations.

Keywords : Low volume Roads; Resilient modulus; KENPAVE; Damage analysis.

1. INTRODUCTION

In India more than 60 % of the total goods and 85 % of the total passenger traffic are
transported through roads. It has one of the largest road networks with more than 48.85 lakhs
km length including National and State Highways, District Roads, Rural roads etc. The
premature failure of pavements is a critical problem faced by most of the countries including
India, and its reason may vary from case to case.

1.1 Low Volume Roads

Low volume roads are constructed in areas where lesser traffic is expected and this
traffic criterion varies for different agencies. Generally roads to carry an Average Daily
Traffic (ADT) of less than 400 vehicles per day are considered in this category and in India,
the limit is less than 450 commercial vehicles per day (Ramulu et al., 2012, Gupta et al.,
2011). The construction of low volume roads connecting villages has enormously increased
with the introduction of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) in 2000. IRC has
issued guidelines for the design and construction of low volume flexible pavements in 2007
(IRC SP 72). It divides low volume roads into gravel/aggregate surfaced roads (unpaved),
flexible pavements (paved) and rigid pavements. Paved low volume roads are supposed to
carry a sizable volume of truck and bus traffic and the maximum number of Equivalent
Single Wheel Load (ESWL) applications is limited to one million. IRC provides design
structures for five subgrade soil classifications and seven traffic conditions as shown in Table
1

Table 1. Subgrade and traffic classifications as per IRC SP 72

Traffic Cumulative ESAL
Quality of CBR
Subgrade (%) Category Applications
S1 - Very Poor 2 T1 10,000-30,000
S 2 - Poor 3-4 T2 30,000-60,000
S 3 - Fair 5-6 T3 60,000-100,000
S 4 - Good 7-9 T4 100,000-200,000
S5 - Very Good 10-15 T5 200,000-300,000
T6 300,000-600,000
T7 600,000-1,000,000

1.2 Reduction of Resilient Modulus

The recent flexible pavement designs consider dynamic properties of materials and
Resilient Modulus (MR) is the most important factor among them. IRC 37 (2012), the
guidelines for flexible pavements, provides the method to calculate MR value for different
materials, as shown in Eq (1) and (2).

MRSG = 10 x CBR for CBR ≤ 5, MR = 17.6 x (CBR)0.64 for CBR > 5 (1)
where,
MR SG – Modulus of sub grade (MPa)
MRGB = MR x 0.2 x h0.45 (2)
MR GB – Modulus of granular base/ subbase (MPa)
h – Thickness of granular base/ subbase (mm)

Most of the pavement design practices are based on the assumption that the subgrade
lies approximately 500mm above the High Flood Level (HFL). But in many parts of the
country, rainfall is very high which makes a portion or sometimes the entire structure of the
pavement in submerged condition. The lack of proper camber and drainage facilities also
cause the same issue, even in medium rainfall areas. The submerged pavement conditions
destroy the subgrade and weaken other pavement layers, leading to the immediate failure of
pavements. The case of submersion of pavement causes reduction of material properties, and
the worst affected material is subgrade and other layers with soil. The decreased material
characteristics result into a reduced MR value also and this makes the material and structural
parameters of the pavement inadequate to resist the changed critical conditions, leading to
pavement failure.

The problem of partial or full submersion of pavement is more critical for low volume
roads, since they are generally constructed in the available land without providing
embankment. Also in most of the cases, the pavement structure for these roads uses limited
quantity of aggregates compared to high volume roads and IRC also recommends the same
with maximum utilization of locally available materials.

1.3 Objectives

The partial or full submersion of pavement structure due to heavy rainfall and
presence of increased HFL causes reduction of material properties including MR values. In
this study, three critical cases of reduction of MR values by 25%, 50% and 75% are
considered. The main objective of this work is to analyse pavement structures suggested by
IRC SP 72 for the worst subgrade condition (CBR 2%) with the assumption of reduced M R
values. It is aimed to compare conventional case with the critical cases using the stresses,
strains, damage ratio, rutting and fatigue lives for these cases determined using KENPAVE
software.

2. PAVEMENT ANALYSIS

The analysis was done using the software package called KENPAVE for pavement
design and analysis, developed by Huang (2004) at the University of Kentucky. It considers
material characteristics, loading and layer thickness as inputs and has provision to analyse
pavement for rutting and fatigue life coefficients, with options of wheel spacing, tyre pressure
etc. The analysis is based on the linear elastic, multilayer theory and the stresses and strains
developed in various layers of the pavement are obtained. The resilient modulus of subgrade
and granular layers are determined based on Equationsns 1 and 2 and provided as inputs.
Stress strain analysis is conducted in KENPAVE to obtain the vertical stress and
displacement values. Tensile and compressive strains, Fatigue and Rutting lives and damage
ratio were obtained from the software by conducting damage analysis.

2.1 KENPAVE Inputs

For analysis all layers are assumed to be linearly elastic with a constant elastic
modulus for each layer. Damage analysis and stress strain analysis are conducted separately.
Other input parameters are listed below:

2.1.1 General Inputs

• The number of periods in a year is 1.

• The number of load groups is 1.
• The number of layers varies among 3, 4 and 5.
• The number of Z coordinates is calculated depending upon the number of
interfaces and the intermediate points for analysis.
 • The number of responses is 5, which are displacement, vertical stress, vertical
strain, major principle stress, minor principle stress and intermediate stress in the
output.
• All layer interfaces are assumed to be bonded.
• SI units are used for calculations.
• The contact radius of circular loaded area is provided as 15.08 cm for single axle
with single wheel and contact pressure as 700 kPa.
• Analysis was conducted for radial distance = 0 (i.e., along the vertical plane of
loading)
• The thickness of each layer is provided in cm.

2.1.2 Material Property Inputs

The values of CBR, Resilient Modulus (MR) and Poisson’s Ratio (ν) used for
different types of materials for design of low volume roads are tabulated in Table 2. Poisson’s
ratio and Young’s Modulus values used for each of the materials is as per practical design
calculations.
Table 2. Material property inputs
Material Resilient Modulus (KPa) Poisson’s Ratio
WBM MR ISG x 0.2 x h0.45 0.4
Granular Base (GB) MR ISG x 0.2 x h0.45 0.3
Granular Sub-Base (GSB) MR ISG x 0.2 x h0.45 0.3
Improved Subgrade (ISG) 17.6 x (CBR)0.64 0.3
10 CBR, (CBR < 5) 0.3
Subgrade (SG)
17.6 x (CBR)0.64 , (CBR > 5) 0.3

MR ISG = Resilient Modulus of Improved Subgrade; h0.45= Thickness of granular layers.

Sample Calculation of MR Value

For S1T4: CBR = 2% (Very poor), Traffic: 1,00,000 to 2,00,000 msa
Thickness MR (C) 25% Reduction 50% Reduction 75% Reduction
75mm 193MPa 145MPa 97MPa 48MPa
100mm 167MPa 125MPa 84MPa 42Mpa
100mm 122MPa 92MPa 61MPa 31Mpa
150mm 77MPa 58MPa 39MPa 19Mpa
Subgrade 20MPa 15MPa 10MPa 5Mpa
C- Conventional

2.1.3 Damage Analysis Inputs

 For damage analysis, fatigue coefficients are notated as FT1, FT2 and FT3, and the
values are 0.0806, 3.89 and 0.854 respectively. Similarly permanent deformation coefficients
FT4 = 4.1656 x 10-08 and FT5 = 4.5337 are also provided.

3. RESULTS

All the stress and strain characteristics were analysed for all layers in both
conventional and critical cases. For critical cases, same thickness and materials as in the
conventional case were maintained and only the material properties (MR values) were
changed. In this study, the load was considered as the single axle single wheel load and
analysis was done for the worst subgrade condition S1 (CBR 2%) and for all seven traffic
categories. For conventional and critical cases, stress and vertical displacement values are
presented in Tables 3 and 4. Damage analysis provided the tensile and compressive strain
values as shown in Tables 5 and 6. Rutting and fatigue lives and damage ratio were also
calculated from damage analysis and the results are presented in Tables 7, 8 and 9.

Table 3. Stress values for conventional and critical cases

Thickness Vertical Stress (KPa)
Traffic
(cm) C 25% 50% 75%
0 700 700 700 700
S1T1 20 213.6 213.9 213.6 212.5
30 95.8 95.8 95.5 95.6
0 700 700 700 700
7.5 597.3 597.3 597.6 597.2
S1T2
22.5 179.7 179.9 179.8 179.0
32.5 83.6 83.6 83.4 83.6
0 700 700 700 700
7.5 599.3 599.5 599.2 599.9
S1T3 17.5 300.5 300.8 300.3 300.7
27.5 129.1 129.1 129.1 128.6
37.5 64.3 64.2 64.1 64.2
0 700 700 700 700
7.5 601.9 602.0 601.8 602.5
S1T4 17.5 309.5 309.9 309.4 309.6
27.5 141.9 142.0 142.1 141.3
42.5 52.8 52.7 52.6 52.8
0 700 700 700 700
7.5 609.0 608.9 609.3 609.2
S1T5 17.5 325.5 325.4 325.9 325.8
32.5 102.2 102.3 102.3 101.9
47.5 41.2 41.2 41.1 41.2
0 700 700 700 700
S1T6 7.5 615.6 615.6 615.7 615.6
17.5 342.9 342.9 343.0 342.8
 40 65.7 65.8 65.9 65.5
55 29.5 29.5 29.5 29.5
0 700 700 700 700
7.5 618.2 618.2 618.2 618.2
S1T7 22.5 245.0 245.0 245.2 244.8
42.5 64.1 64.2 64.2 63.7
65 22.0 22.0 21.9 22.0
C – Conventional

Table 4. Vertical displacement for conventional and critical cases

Thickness Vertical Displacement (cm)
Traffic
(cm) C 25% 50% 75%
0 0.316 0.421 0.629 1.262
S1T1 20 0.268 0.357 0.534 1.073
30 0.241 0.321 0.481 0.964
0 0.304 0.405 0.606 1.215
7.5 0.286 0.382 0.571 1.146
S1T2
22.5 0.248 0.330 0.494 0.992
32.5 0.224 0.299 0.448 0.898
0 0.275 0.366 0.548 1.098
7.5 0.259 0.345 0.516 1.033
S1T3 17.5 0.233 0.311 0.465 0.932
27.5 0.213 0.284 0.425 0.852
37.5 0.195 0.260 0.389 0.780
0 0.260 0.346 0.518 1.038
7.5 0.246 0.328 0.491 0.983
S1T4 17.5 0.220 0.294 0.440 0.882
27.5 0.200 0.266 0.399 0.801
42.5 0.176 0.234 0.351 0.704
0 0.233 0.310 0.464 0.932
7.5 0.219 0.292 0.437 0.879
S1T5 17.5 0.196 0.262 0.391 0.785
32.5 0.173 0.231 0.345 0.694
47.5 0.155 0.206 0.309 0.619
0 0.193 0.257 0.386 0.773
7.5 0.189 0.252 0.378 0.757
S1T6 17.5 0.168 0.224 0.336 0.674
40 0.143 0.191 0.286 0.573
55 0.130 0.173 0.260 0.521
0 0.179 0.238 0.356 0.714
7.5 0.174 0.233 0.348 0.697
S1T7
22.5 0.147 0.196 0.293 0.588
42.5 0.128 0.171 0.256 0.513
 65 0.112 0.150 0.224 0.449

Table 5. Tensile strain for conventional and critical cases

Tensile strain
Traffic
C 25% 50% 75%
S1T1 -1.47E-03 -1.96E-03 -2.92E-03 -5.92E-03
S1T2 -3.29E-04 -4.42E-04 -6.45E-04 -1.29E-03
S1T3 -2.90E-04 -3.90E-04 -5.75E-04 -1.13E-03
S1T4 -3.11E-04 -4.18E-04 -6.18E-04 -1.21E-03
S1T5 -2.77E-04 -3.67E-04 -5.46E-04 -1.12E-03
S1T6 -2.58E-04 -3.44E-04 -5.16E-04 -1.03E-03
S1T7 -2.63E-04 -3.52E-04 -5.24E-04 -1.04E-03

Table 6. Compressive strain for conventional and critical cases

Compressive strain
Traffic
C 25% 50% 75%
S1T1 5.13E-03 6.84E-03 1.02E-02 2.05E-02
S1T2 4.48E-03 5.97E-03 8.93E-03 1.79E-02
S1T3 3.47E-03 4.61E-03 6.91E-03 1.39E-02
S1T4 2.85E-03 3.79E-03 5.68E-03 1.14E-02
S1T5 2.23E-03 2.97E-03 4.45E-03 8.93E-03
S1T6 1.60E-03 2.14E-03 3.20E-03 6.43E-03
S1T7 1.20E-03 1.60E-03 2.39E-03 4.80E-03

Table 7. Fatigue lives for conventional and critical cases

Nf
Traffic
C 25% 50% 75%
S1T1 2.92E+05 1.23E+05 3.66E+04 4.20E+03
S1T2 9.41E+07 3.82E+07 1.24E+07 1.52E+06
S1T3 1.42E+08 5.76E+07 1.79E+07 2.38E+06
S1T4 1.08E+08 4.38E+07 1.35E+07 1.79E+06
S1T5 1.61E+08 6.81E+07 2.06E+07 2.28E+06
S1T6 1.96E+08 8.17E+07 2.38E+07 2.93E+06
S1T7 1.76E+08 7.28E+07 2.18E+07 2.70E+06

Table 8. Rutting lives for conventional and critical cases

Nr
Traffic
C 25% 50% 75%
T1 1.00E+03 2.72E+02 4.40E+01 1.87E+00
T2 1.86E+03 5.04E+02 8.14E+01 3.46E+00
T3 5.95E+03 1.62E+03 2.60E+02 1.11E+01
T4 1.45E+04 3.95E+03 6.35E+02 2.70E+01
T5 4.38E+04 1.19E+04 1.92E+03 8.12E+01
 T6 1.95E+05 5.30E+04 8.47E+03 3.61E+02
T7 7.27E+05 1.97E+05 3.19E+04 1.36E+03

Table 9. Damage ratio for conventional and critical cases

Damage Ratio
Traffic
C 25% 50% 75%
T1 29.92 110.30 681.30 16020.00
T2 32.30 119.00 737.50 17340.00
T3 16.82 61.68 384.40 9005.00
T4 13.80 50.59 315.10 7409.00
T5 6.85 25.18 156.30 3693.00
T6 3.08 11.31 70.81 1660.00
T7 1.38 5.07 31.36 442.40

4. CONCLUSIONS

Major conclusions observed from the analysis of pavement structures suggested by

IRC SP 72 for subgrade having 2% CBR and for reduced MR value conditions are as follows:

• Vertical stress does not change much with the reduction in MR value, whereas the
vertical displacement increased about 1.3 – 4 times from the conventional values.
• From damage analysis, Compressive and Tensile strain values were also observed
to be 1.3 – 4 times higher for critical cases.
• For critical cases of reduced MR value, fatigue and rutting lives decreased
drastically. The reduction was 58 – 98 % for fatigue life and 72 – 100 % for rutting
life from the conventional value.
• Another serious change was observed with damage ratio, which increased about
3.6 times for 25% reduced MR value, whereas for 75% reduction it became 535
times the conventional value. This critical increase in damage ration indicates
pavement failure.
• For all parameters assessed in the study, other than vertical stress, the change in
value from conventional to critical cases remains almost same for all traffic cases.

From the entire study it can be concluded that, the cases of reduction in material
properties due to partial or full submersion of pavement should be seriously considered,
especially in the areas of high rainfall, and alternate design structures have to be adopted.

References

1. Gupta, A., Kumar, P., and Rastogi, R. (2011). Pavement deterioration and
maintenance model for low volume roads. International Journal of Pavement
Research and Technology, 4(4), 195:202.
2. Huang, Y.H. (2004). Pavement analysis and design. Pearson Prentice Hall, USA.
3. IRC: 37 (2012). Tentative guidelines for the design of flexible pavements. The Indian
Roads Congress, New Delhi.
 4. IRC: SP: 72 (2007). Guidelines for the design of flexible pavements for low volume
rural roads. The Indian Roads Congress, New Delhi.
5. Lekha, B.M., Shankar, A.U.R., Sarang, G. (2013). Fatigue and Engineering Properties
of Chemically Stabilized Soil for Pavements. Indian Geotechnical Journal, 43(1),
96:104.
6. Ramulu, G., Shankar, S., Chowdary, V., and Prasad, C.S.R.K. (2012). Influence of
unbound material properties on rutting potential of low volume roads. Cement and
Concrete Composites, 42, 6377:6382.

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