Survival analysis of fatigue cracking for flexible pavements based on long-term pavement performance data

The study presented in this paper analyzed the development patterns of fatigue cracking shown in flexible pavement test sections of the long-term pavement performance (LTPP) program. A large number of LTPP test sections exhibited a sudden burst of fatigue cracking after a few years of service. In order to characterize this type of LTPP cracking data, a survival analysis was conducted to investigate the relationship between fatigue failure time and various influencing factors. After dropping insignificant influencing factors, accelerated failure time models were developed to show the quantitative relationship between fatigue failure time and asphalt concrete layer thickness, Portland cement concrete base layer thickness, average traffic level, intensity of precipitation, and freeze-thaw cycles. The error distribution of the accelerated failure time model was found to be best represented by the generalized gamma distribution. The model can also be used to predict the average behavior of fatigue failures of flexible pavements. Journal of Transportation Engineering