Chapter 1: Introduction

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Section 1: Guide Overview

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Purpose

The purpose of this guide is to provide the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), consultant firms, and contractors a detailed pavement overview covering all materials, design, construction and maintenance. The guide:

serves as an extensive pavement reference that users can browse to look up typical values, methods, practices and resources
provides approved policies and procedures for pavement design for use on TxDOT projects
provides pavement engineers with a uniform, streamlined process for designing pavements
includes a list of available training courses to pavement engineers and links to web-based training for pavement design and analysis programs used by TxDOT
serves as a guide to pavement engineers for selecting pavement rehabilitation strategies
addresses related topics that a pavement engineer needs such as procedures for changing load zones, superheavy load analysis and pavement forensics.

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Organization

This guide is organized into fifteen chapters:

Chapter 1, Introduction. This chapter provides an overview of the guide, a list of the training courses related to pavements and highway materials and also provides contacts for pavement and materials related topics.
Chapter 2, Pavement Design Process. This chapter provides definitions of pavement types, pavement type selection, the approved methods for pavement design, pavement design categories, pavement design process, information needed for pavement design, and pavement design reports.
Chapter 3, Materials Investigation and Selection Information. This chapter covers geotechnical investigations, stabilizations guidelines, aggregate types and classes, performance graded binders (PG binders), asphalt concrete pavement (ACP) mixtures, Portland cement concrete (PCC) and also geosynthetics.
Chapter 4, Pavement Evaluation. This chapter provides an overview of pavement evaluation and non-destructive testing for pavements.
Chapter 5, Flexible Pavement Design. This chapter provides an overview of the types of flexible pavements, design parameters and typical ranges, pavement detours and widening.
Chapter 6, Flexible Pavement Construction. This chapter covers subgrade and base construction, surface preparation, plant operation, mix transport, mix placement, compaction and ride quality.
Chapter 7, Flexible Pavement Rehabilitation. This chapter covers the different rehabilitation options for flexible pavements including hot in-place recycling, cold in-place recycling, geosynthetics, flexible base thickening, full depth reclamation, hot mix asphalt (HMA) overlays, white topping and surface treatments.
Chapter 8, Rigid Pavement Design. This chapter covers the approved pavement design methods for rigid pavements, rigid pavement design process, recommended typical values, thickness determination, concrete paving standards and white topping.
Chapter 9, Rigid Pavement Construction. This chapter covers construction of subgrade and base, surface preparation, plant operation, mix transport, steel placement, fixed form paving, slip form paving, joints and texture requirements.
Chapter 10, Rigid Pavement Rehabilitation. This chapter covers the different rehabilitation options for rigid pavements including full depth patches, partial depth patches, reducing rigid pavements, bonded and unbonded concrete overlays, thin ACP overlays, stitching and joints repairs.
Chapter 11, Forensics. This chapter provides an overview of the Forensic Team, investigation procedures and archiving forensics.
Chapter 12, Load Zoning and Super Heavy Load Analysis. This chapter provides an overview of the procedures for changing load zones on highways (including county roads and bridges) and also super heavy load analysis.
Chapter 13, Pavements and Materials Research. This chapter provides an overview of TxDOT Pavements and Materials research program, National cooperative research program (NCHRP) and Transportation Research Board (TRB).
Chapter 14, Trade Organizations. This chapter provides a listing of the different pavement trade organizations and the roles and services provided by these organizations. Links to the organizations’ web sites are also provided.
Chapter 15, Other Manuals and State D.O.T. Links.