Development of Climate Data Inputs Towards the Implementation of Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design in the UAE

Abstract

The current state of practice in the UAE is to use AASHTO 1993 for pavement designs, yet this method is empirical and has several limitations. The local traffic characteristics, climate conditions, and materials properties must be incorporated in more explicit and mechanistic ways. This study is part of ongoing local research efforts to move towards the implementation of the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide, known as MEPDG, which depends on fundamental material properties, integrated climate conditions, and real traffic characteristics. The main objective of this study is to develop the historical climate data files and climate inputs for 20 different automatic and airports stations covering the entire UAE. These weather stations were divided into four geographical regions: desert area, urban area, coastal area, and mountainous area. In addition, the study investigates the impact of local climate conditions on the simulated asphalt pavement performance using the AASHTOWare Pavement ME Design. This study showed that, however, UAE is a small country yet there are some differences between the climate records of the different weather stations, which is expected to affect pavement design and performance depending on the project site location. For example, the warmest weather station has 36% higher temperature than the coldest weather station at Jabal Jais. This in turn displayed up to 40% and 23% differences in the asphalt concrete (AC) rutting and total rutting, respectively between these extreme weather stations. These findings and many other emphasize the crucial need to consider the climate data inputs at the project level bases, where a single climate data file cannot represent the entire UAE.