Evaluation for the effect of pavement type on the total life cost and environmental aspects of roads

Abstract

There are several types of pavements which have been constructed around the world; flexible and rigid pavement. These pavements have major differences in terms of materials and construction process, giving the differences in their compositions and production process, each one of these pavements has some strength and weak points. The current study presents detailed comparison between these two pavements from the perspectives of the total life cost and environmental aspects using software Athena pavement Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The assessment using LCA software is based on the construction materials, the construction and maintenance process as well as the machines and vehicles used during the construction, and the life cycle of pavement. Two majors streets were selected for the purpose of the comparison, the first street is called the street of coaches station in Al-Diwaniyah city and the second street is Om Al-Kheil street. The street of coaches station was constructed with composite pavement layers (full rigid pavement layers covered by 5 cm flexible pavement layer). On the other hand, the street of Om Al-Kheil was constructed with full layers of flexible pavement. The results of Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) showed that initial construction cost of composite pavement is higher than that of flexible pavement by 31%, while the total maintenance cost for flexible pavement is about 24 % more than of composite pavement. The diesel oil and gasoline had consumed by higher quantities during the preparation and construction stages of flexible pavement compared with composite pavement. Therefore, the environmental impact and gases emissions is more consumed during the construction of flexible pavement.