METHODOLOGY FOR SUBSTANTIATION OF THE OPTIMUM LEVEL OF DESIGN RELIABILITY IN THE DESIGN OF PAVEMENTS

Abstract

Ensuring the reliability of roads can be viewed as a step-by-step process, divided into such main stages as design, construction and operation. The theory of road reliability in our country has been widely developed and has long been integrated to one degree or another into all stages of the life cycle of a road. Among specialists, the most widely known indicator is the level of design reliability of pavement, which determines its necessary reserve in terms of bearing capacity. The value of the level of design reliability of the pavement affects its construction cost and, other things being equal, should determine the current costs of maintaining the pavement. Unfortunately, in our country there is no regulatory regulator that allows linking the margin of safety of pavement with the mechanism of accumulation of defects. This eliminates the already extremely rarely used opportunity to conduct a feasibility study of the level of design reliability for optimizing pavement structures. The authors propose a methodical approach to substantiate the level of design reliability of flexible pavements, which is demonstrated on the example of flexible pavement of a category II road and implemented using the current provisions of regulatory documents.