Avaliação da influência das variáveis climáticas no desempenho de estruturas de pavimento flexível através de critérios empírico-mecanísticos

Abstract

The Brazilian road network, predominantly composed of asphalt pavements, exhibits performance that is highly sensitive to environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, and precipitation. Empirical-mechanistic methods, such as MeDiNa and MEPDG, have been adopted to provide greater accuracy in predicting structural behavior over time. However, these methods—especially the MEPDG—lack proper calibration and adaptation to Brazil’s regional climatic data, as they were originally developed based on conditions in the United States. This research conducts a literature review of the main pavement design methods used in Brazil and abroad, comparing their approaches regarding traffic, materials, and climate. Project parameters and control variables were defined based on local conditions in the city of Goiânia (GO). For the simulations, the AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design software was employed, with its original North American climate database adapted using local meteorological information. The studied pavement structure includes asphalt surface, base, subbase, and subgrade layers, with mechanical properties determined from the literature. The simulation results provided relevant insights into rutting, alligator cracking, and the International Roughness Index (IRI). It was observed that rutting was highly sensitive to variations in temperature and wind speed, with an evaluation indicating that a 5% increase in temperature combined with a 5% reduction in wind speed could compromise up to 11.74% of the structure, especially in the surface layer, which showed variations of up to 20.54% across the simulated scenarios. Regarding alligator cracking, a significant and exponential increase over the years was noted. A noteworthy trend was identified, in which simulations with lower levels of permanent deformation generally exhibited higher cracking incidence. The same trend was observed for the IRI, which showed lower values in scenarios with higher rutting. In summary, these results highlight the importance of considering climatic criteria when applying mechanistic-empirical methods in the design of flexible pavements, especially in regions with diverse climates, such as the tropical conditions present in Goiânia.