The Effects of Compaction Effort On the Lifespan Of Bituminous Pavements

More often than not, in Malaysia, millions of ringgit is spent each year remedying
failures due to fatigue cracking and permanent deformation. Chief among the causes of
these failures is the inability to ensure maximum desired compaction, especially on the
bituminous surfacing layer. The materials used for our road construction projects are of
the highest quality. It is suspected then, that a lack of supervision during the construction
and compaction phase of a project results in the lack of compaction effort, which leads to
failure.
The objectives of this Final Year Project are to firstly establish the relationship between
compaction effort and the performance and lifespan of bituminous pavements. This
relationship could be expressed in the form of graphs, equations, charts and so on.
Secondly, once a relationship is established, the second objective of this Final Year
Project would be a comparative analysis on the life-cost cycle of any project, to show
potential savings from an increasedinvestment in compaction effort.
This Final Year Project starts with a review on past works and research regarding
bituminous materials, compaction and life-cycle costing. This is followed by a series of
laboratory tests, namely the static creep test and the wheel-tracking test. From this, a.
relationship between the level of compaction with respect to the lifespan of pavements
could be obtainedand a comparative analysis could be done on potential cost savings.
From the laboratorytests that were conducted, a trend/pattern was established relating to
the increase in pavement performance proportional to the increase in compaction.
However, due to the inability to obtain maximum compaction, a definite relationship
between compaction effort and lifespan of pavements could not be obtained. After
making some assumptions, a comparative analysis was done and it was found that for
every kilometer of road, a savings of $200,000 could be obtained for the entire project
cycle. The assumptions are exaggerated and would have led to even greater cost savings
if the exactrelationship between compaction effortandthe lifespan of pavements.