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Currently, Egypt is using the [AASHTO, 1993. Guide for design of pavement structures. Washington, DC: American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials] guide for the flexible pavement structural design. In this method the resilient modulus (MR) of the unbound granular base/subbase materials and subgrade soils is a measure of material stiffness used for characterisation. It is considered one of the major factors affecting the pavement layerthicknesses. However, in Egypt, California Bearing Ratio (CBR) is the main strength parameter used for characterisation of the unbound materials and subgrade soils due to its availability and simplicity. In this research, a comprehensive experimental testing programme was conducted on different unbound granular base/subbase materials typically used in pavement construction projects in Egypt. The testing programme includes MR, CBR, and basic material properties. The effect of aggregate gradation on MR is investigated. A model predicting MR as a function of the basic material properties is proposed. The MR–CBR relationship adopted in the current Egyptian Code of Practice is verified based on the testing results. The experimental data warranted the calibration of the current model. The calibrated model has reasonable goodness of fit statistics and yields rational MR estimates for the local materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the transferability of the Safety Performance Function (SPF) of the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) and other 10 international SPFs for total crashes on rural multi-lane divided roads in Egypt. Four segmentation approaches are assessed in the transferability of the international SPFs, namely: (1) one-kilometer segments (S1); (2) homogenous sections (S2); (3) variable segments with respect to the presence of curvatures (S3); and (4) variable segments with respect to the presence of both curvatures and U-turns (S4). The Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD), Mean Prediction Bias (MPB), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Pearson χ² statistic, and Z-score parameters are used to evaluate the performance of the transferred models. The overdispersion parameter (k) for each transferred model and each segmentation approach is recalibrated using the local data by the maximum likelihood method. Before estimating the transferability calibration factor (Cr), three methods were used to adjust the local crash prediction of the transferred models, namely: (1) the HSM default crash modification factors (CMFs); (2) local CMFs; and (3) recalibrating the constant term of the transferred model. The latter method is found to outperform the first two methods. Besides, the results show that the segmentation method would affect the performance of the transferability process. Moreover, the Italian SPFs based on the S1 segmentation method outperforms the HSM and all of the investigated international SPFs for transferring their models to the Egyptian rural roads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, very few researchers employed the Least Square Support Vector Machine (LSSVM) in predicting the resilient modulus (Mr) of Unbound Granular Materials (UGMs). This paper focused on the development of a LSSVM model to predict the Mr of recycled materials for pavement applications and comparison with other different models such as Regression, and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Blends of Recycled Concrete Aggregate (RCA) with Recycled Clay Masonry (RCM) with proportions of 100/0, 90/10, 80/20, 70/30, 55/45, 40/60, 20/80, and 0/100 by the total aggregate mass were evaluated for use as UGMs. RCA/RCM materials were collected from dumps on the sides of roads around Mansoura city, Egypt. The investigated blends were evaluated experimentally by routine and advanced tests and the Mr values were determined by Repeated Load Triaxial Test (RLTT). Regression, ANN, and LSSVM models were utilized and compared in predicting the Mr of the investigated blends optimizing the best design model. Results showed that the Mr values of the investigated RCA/RCM blends were generally increased with the decrease in RCM proportion. Statistical analyses were utilized for evaluating the performance of the developed models and the inputs sensitivity parameters. Eventually, the results approved that the LSSVM model can be used as a novel tool to estimate the Mr of the investigated RCA/RCM blends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper mainly aims at investigating the effect of using multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as an additive on the rheological properties of asphalt. Pristine (P-MWCNTs) were mixed at 120 °C with control asphalt at contents of 0.5%, 1.0%, 2.0% and 3.0% by asphalt weight. The empirical and rheological properties (using the Superpave testing) of the control and modified asphalts were evaluated at different aging conditions. The rheological properties of the modified asphalts were found to improve with increasing the percentage of P-MWCNTs. The high failure temperature and rutting resistance of both unaged and rolling thin film oven aged (RTFO) modified asphalts increased with increasing P-MWCNTs percentage and became suitable for the Egyptian climatic conditions as required by the Superpave binder characterization. At a given temperature, the fatigue cracking resistance and low temperature cracking resistance decreased with increasing P-MWCNTs percentage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this study is to assess the technical viability of using cement dust as part of the fines percentage in the unbound granular base/subbase pavement layers' and subgrade soil as a viable sustainable solution. This study investigates the effect of adding cement dust to five types of pavement road materials which are collected from different ongoing roadway construction projects (1) Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP), (2) crushed stone base aggregates, (3) blend of crushed stone base aggregates with RAP, (4) crushed stone subbase aggregates, and (5) sandy subgrade soil. The resilient modulus (Mr) is selected as the main characteristic for evaluating the investigated materials' stiffness. The regression parameters (k1, k2, and k3) of the universal Mr prediction model are found by fitting the experimental results of Mr testing for two replicates per each material type. The r esults show that using 3-5% of cement dust improves the estimated Mr of the investigated base/subbase materials and subgrades at the anticipated field stresses b y 8-21%.,As a result the structural layer coefficients are enhanced by 11-17%. KENLAYER nonlinear damage analysis confirms that using 3-5% of cement dust improves the predicted rutting life by up to 12% and the fatigue life up to 27%. Based on a typical pavement structure, enhancing pavement base/subbase layers and subgrade soils with 3-5% of cement dust reduces asphalt layer thickness from 11.25 to 12.50% and increases base/subbase layer thickness from 8.75 to 12.50% to maintain the same predicted rutting and fatigue lives of the typical structure. This positively affects the total construction cost in addition to the ecological benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]