Structural design of asphalt pavements for renewable energy plants

The world has seen an explosive growth in renewable energy development activity in recent years, attributed to the significant technological advancements in green energy (e.g., wind and solar energy), alongside other emerging technologies. The development of wind farms requires movement of very heavy equipment and components on Farm-to-Market (FM) roads during installation and operation phases by Overweight/Oversize (OW/OS) hauling units. Such moves of OW/OS vehicles necessitate designing the FM pavements to have adequate structural capacity that can accommodate the heavy and slow-moving nature of hauling vehicle. The main objective of this study is the definition of a mechanistic-empirical methodology for the structural design of asphalt pavements in renewable energy plants. More specifically, the following aspects were analyzed in the thesis: • The effects of climate on structural design, with special emphasis on the role played by monthly variations of temperature and precipitation in the definition of the mechanical characteristics of both the asphalt layers and the subgrade soil. • Shear failure mechanisms in unbound layers induced by OW/OS vehicles and the corresponding design approaches. • The influence of the model used for traffic homogenization, with the comparison of different reference axles. • Reference traffic spectra for wind and solar farms. These points were thoroughly analyzed and implemented in a mechanistic-empirical structural design methodology specifically developed for new asphalt pavements in wind and solar farms.