2003 - NZ - Use of Pavement Deterioration Models in Pavement Design

The design of new pavements in New Zealand and rehabilitation treatments are currently performed in accordance with the Austroads Pavement Design Guide and its New Zealand supplement. New Zealand is also adopting pavement deterioration modeling based on the World Bank HDM models. This paper demonstrates how the modeling of roughness progression can supplement pavement design. It also demonstrates that the long life >50 years of many NZ pavements without significant roughness is not unexpected. It concludes that a combination of deterioration modeling and mechanistic design can be a powerful tool and that the rehabilitation of most of the network is associated with failure other than the classic roughness and rutting.