TODO: Make this README better. PLS, Neveen. Do ASAP.
This is a work-in-progress pavement design tool. The decision-making process includes performance characteristics (with the help of AASHTOWare ME Design) in addition to environmental characteristics and sustainability factors.
rt.db and test.dbFor now, it's best to open this as a project in IntelliJ IDEA. Then
runn cm.App.main().
There is consensus that a reliable method to quantify pavement sustainability is needed. State of the art promotes the use of life cycle assessment for quantification of pavement sustainability. While Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a promising tool for evaluating materials’ sustainability from cradle to grave, it is time-consuming and the data used can be outdated and/or inaccurate. Various Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) models/tools exist including eco-invent; Gabi; Semipro, and sustainable minds. The main deficiency of these tools is that their data might be biased or incomplete. Furthermore, discrepancies emerge when each model has its own data sources. Such discrepancies could be related to the data sources, outdated data, data accuracy, and geographical representation and system boundaries. This renders the use of LCA challenging, time-consuming and highly unreliable. Therefore, the problem boundary is usually limited decreasing the level of reliability associated with the LCA results.
Given the aforementioned limitations and to overcome both the discrepancy and the time issues, an innovative reliable decision making tool is needed if sustainability is to be used by DOT agencies as a design component.
The objective of the proposed study is to conceive and develop a decision-making tool for evaluating sustainability of pavement designs based on a cradle to gate analysis. This tool will utilize Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) to enhance the reliability of the assessment data and will be integrated within state of the art pavement design methods such as Pavement ME. The proposed tool will be easy to use by pavement designers and decision makers; it will also allow for evaluating alternative designs.
An extensive literature review will be performed to present current state practices and studies that evaluate pavement sustainability quantification methods from published materials and ongoing projects. The collected and reviewed literature will provide the research team with valuable information as related to the following topics:
A database that compiles Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for concrete and available asphalt pavement products will be designed and compiled. Since EPDs are dependent on their associated Product Category Rule (PCRs), which reports the content of EPD and their limitations. the PCRs will be linked to the EPD to inform the user of the quality of information extracted.
The developed database will be integrated as part of a pavement sustainability design tool that measures environmental and economic sustainability based on a cradle to gate analysis. The tool will be linked with the Pavement MEPDG design software. It will use the MEPDG software design output as search criteria in the data base to select the most sustainable mix design based on environmental and economic performance.
Demonstration of the developed sustainable pavement design tool will be conducted for different design cases including a rigid pavement and a flexible pavement. Projects will be selected in coordination with LADOTD. The optimum design will be selected based on performance, environmental, and economic factors.
The developed pavement design sustainability decision tool will be user friendly and be integrated in LADOTD pavement design processes by the end of this project. It will allow the designers to compare alterative pavement designs that satisfy performance criteria from an environmental and economic perspective to enhance the sustainability of pavement design in LA. The developed tool will impact highway contractors, DOTs, transportation and civil engineers. It will help put Louisiana on the Map as leader in pavement sustainability.