Database Development for Ontario's Local Calibration of Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) Distress Models

The AASHTO Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) includes empirical distress models that need both global and local calibrations. The local calibration requires developing a database that would reflect local environments, design and maintenance practices in a particular jurisdictional region. The objective of the thesis is to develop a pavement database for local calibration before the MEPDG is to be implemented in Ontario. The database involves a hierarchical framework of the input parameters required for DARWin-ME, and the measured performance data are based on the MTO’s PMS-2. To demonstrate the validity of the developed database a preliminary local calibration including clustering analysis is carried out for the IRI and total rutting. The calibration-validation analysis suggests that the IRI model can be best clustered based on the geographical zone whereas the highway functional class is the best clustering parameter for rutting during the local calibration.