Suggested Citation:
Saadeh, Shadi, Avinash Ralla, Yazan Al-Zubi, Rongzong Wu, John T. Harvey (2019) Application of Fully Permeable Pavements as a Sustainable Approach for Mitigation of Stormwater Runoff. International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology 8 (4), 338 - 350

The current research paper presents the implementation of a new design method for fully permeable pavements, developed using the mechanistic-empirical approach by the University of California Pavement Research Center (UCPRC) through building two test sections which includes asphalt and concrete at California State University Long Beach (CSULB). Fully permeable pavements are characterized as that in which all layers are permeable, and the pavement structure serves as a reservoir to store water and minimize the negative impacts of stormwater. Pressure cells and strain gages were installed during the construction of pavement for measuring the stress on the top of subgrade and strain at the bottom of surface layer on both test sections to evaluate the performance of the fully permeable pavement. In this study, the traffic count was also determined. The collected data from pressure cells and strain gages were analysed using MATLAB program and graphs were plotted to study the pattern in the data sets. The plots revealed that the asphalt section experienced more stress and strain in comparison to concrete test section. Both the test sections showed reliable performance in terms of distresses. Though the year 2017 was considered to be one of the wettest in California, both test sections performed well in infiltrating the stormwater. The collected data is being used to evaluate the performance of both test sections. Based on the performance evaluation results, it was determined that it is possible to develop and implement the fully permeable pavement design as part of a sustainable approach for freeways.

Key words: Permeable pavement design, permeable asphalt, stormwater management