ABSTRACT
This paper presents a study of the mechanical responses from an in-service road section, in terms of strains and vertical stress, comparing data obtained from sensors installed at the bottom of the asphalt layer to the pavement-modeled responses in two different approaches: using a linear elastic analysis software (AEMC) and a viscoelastic analysis software (FlexPAVETM). Data in situ was gathered by means of a customized acquisition system with embedded signal processing. The temperatures measured in-situ were also compared to those estimated by the MERRA (Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications) climate database, which is embedded in the newest AASHTOWare Pavement-ME version. The results demonstrated high quality of the signal processing capabilities of the data acquisition system developed to the project and returned excellent affinity to the modeled response, thereby demonstrating high potential to serve as a continuous structure monitoring tool.
