Daily Schedule:
8:00am - Registration and coffee (1st day only)
8:30am - Session begins
5:00pm - Adjournment
Breakfast, two refreshment breaks and lunch are provided daily

Description:

Most of the current pavement design methods including AASHTO Pavement Design are empirical-based. This means that they were developed based on considering limited local pavement materials, environmental factors, and traffic conditions. Although these pavement design methods have been used successfully by many highway agencies, frequently they are not accurate for specific pavement materials and environmental conditions other than they have been developed. Additionally these methods were developed based on traffic volume and vehicle types in 1950’s and are not adequate for the existing and future traffic volume and types.

A Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) has been developed in the USA under NCHRP 1-37A in 2004 to address shortcomings in the current pavement design methods. This Guide incorporates pavement knowledge and experiences, which were developed during the last 50 years.

Many highway agencies have plans to implement the MEPDG as their pavement design method. Implementation of the MEPDG requires training, data collection, and local calibration/validation of performance models in MEPDG.

Objective:

The main objective of this workshop is to provide participants with a through understanding of shortcomings in the current pavement design methods and to introduce important pavement design factors, traffic, materials, and environmental factors for the MEPDG.

Participants will learn how to use the MEPDG software and how to interpret the outputs. The focus of the workshop will be on MEPDG flexible pavement design.

Target Audience:

The workshop is intended for pavement owners/users, consulting engineers, contractors and engineering technologists. A basic background of pavement engineering is required.  This course is an excellent opportunity for those wishing to develop their knowledge on the latest technology in the area of pavement design, maintenance and rehabilitation.

Upon completion of the workshop participant will be able to:

• Shortcomings in the current pavement design methods.
• Traffic considerations in MEPDG
• Pavement materials considerations in MEPDG
• Environmental considerations in MEPDG
• Sensitivity of input parameters in MEPDG flexible pavement design
• MEPDG for rehabilitation of flexible pavements
• Application of MEPDG software for flexible pavement design
• Implementation Issues and challenge

Program Outline (12 PDH)

Day I:

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  • Current pavement design methods and their shortcomings
    • Review of AASHTO pavement design method and its limitations
    • Why we need a MEPDG?
    • Key points in MEPDG
  • Traffic considerations in MEPDG
    • Traffic considerations and calculations in existing pavement design methods
    • ESAL and its limitations
    • Traffic considerations in MEPDG (traffic spectrum)
    • Traffic data for three MEPDG levels 
  • Flexible pavement material considerations in MEPDG
    • Inputs for unbound pavement layers
    • Inputs for asphalt concrete pavement material
    • Material inputs for three levels of MEPDG
  • Environmental considerations in MEPDG
    • Introduction to Integrated Climatic Model
    • Environmental data for MEPDG
  • Hands on MEPDG software for flexible pavements
    • Example of entering data and running MEPDG software
  Day II:

MEPDG Pavement Maintenance and Implementation Issues

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  • Flexible pavement rehabilitation in MEPDG
    • Asphalt pavement rehabilitation Inputs in MEPDG levels
  • Sensitivity of input parameters for MEPDG flexible pavement design.
    • Sensitivity of output parameters to various input parameters for new and rehabilitation flexible pavement design
  • Performance models for MEPDG flexible pavement design
    • Introducing performance models in MEPDG for flexible pavements
  • Implementation of MEPDG; issues and challenges
    • Advantages of MEPDG
    • Calibration-validation of MEPDG
    • Challenges and issues in implementation of MEPDG 

Instructor: Hamid R. Soleymani, Ph.D., P.Eng.

Dr. Hamid R. Soleymani has a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Civil Engineering and Transportation Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran. He obtained his Ph.D. from University of Saskatchewan in 1997. After graduation, he worked as a post-doc. at the North Central Superpave Center at Purdue University, USA for three years. He was the main research engineer for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) 9-12 titled “Incorporation of Reclaimed Asphalt pavement with Superpave”.
Hamid Joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta in 2000 and taught civil engineering materials, transportation engineering, and pavement management systems at graduate and undergraduate levels. He was involved in several research studies for Alberta Transportation and City of Edmonton.

He worked for EBA Consultant Engineering, as a senior pavements and materials Engineer, from 2006 to 2010. During this time he worked on many pavement preservation projects as well as several pavement and materials research studies for Alberta Transportation.

He joined SAGA Engineering in 2010 and is continuing his teaching and research collaboration with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta as an adjunct/research faculty member.

Dr. Soleymani has more than 13 years academic and industrial experience and is a registered engineer in Alberta since 2004. He has published more than 30 papers in technical journals and conferences. His expertise and research interest areas are: asphalt and Portland cement concrete, Superpave mix design, pavements design and maintenance, materials characterization and modeling, pavement performance evaluation, mechanistic pavement design, and pavement management systems.