Field Calibration

The UCPRC developed a new approach for field calibration that takes advantage of Caltrans investments in its pavement management system databases for as-builts and its many years of condition survey data. The UCPRC improved the usefulness of that data extensively for performance modeling for the PMS through quality checking and by matching as-built records to condition time histories. More than 10 years of extensive review of the data had produced a very large database for development of empirical-mechanistic performance models for the Caltrans pavement management system. This database was available for CalME calibration, as well as for calibration of the Pavement ME program from AASHTO, which is used for design of jointed plain concrete pavement.

The new field calibration approach has been explained in Wu et al. (2022), and in more details in Wu et al. (2021).

Note that this approach is very different from traditional methods which use small numbers of field sections from which materials may or may not have been sampled. This is made possible by the availability of both the extensive PMS data collected by Caltrans and the comprehensive historical material testing database accumulated by the UCPRC.

Wu, R., Harvey, J., Lea, J., Jones, D., Louw, S., Mateos, A., Hernandez-Fernandez, N., Shrestha, R., and Holland, J. 2022. “Calibration of a Mechanistic-Empirical Cracking Model Using Network-Level Field Data:” Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, May, 036119812210915. https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981221091561

Wu, R., Harvey, J., Lea, J., Mateos, A., Yang, S., and Hernandez, N. 2021. Updates to CalME and Calibration of Cracking Models. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/460234g0.