Simplified Design Table for Minnesota Concrete Pavements

Project summary:

This research aimed to develop a design table that further refines the National Cooperative Highway Research Program's (NCHRP's) Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) design for a limited number of rigid pavement projects that, taken together, form a basis for all the projects built in the state of Minnesota. These projects are jointed plain concrete pavement projects, and they assume design inputs and features common to Minnesota pavements. The research led to the creation of MnPCC-ME, a standalone 32-bit Windows executable program to replace the preexisting RigidPave. Whereas RigidPave was based upon the outdated American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) 1993 design procedure for rigid pavements, MnPCC-ME is based on MEPDG version 1.1, a mechanistic-empirical design procedure that accounts for the effects of traffic loading and environment. Furthermore, MnPCC-ME was localized for Minnesota pavements through: 1) the use of local climate data and weigh-in-motion traffic data; 2) the incorporation of previously conducted calibrations of the MEPDG for Minnesota pavements; and 3) the inclusion of advanced analysis features included in MnPCC-ME's flexible design counterpart, MnPAVE.