‘Advanced Testing and Characterization of Bituminous Materials ~ Loizos, Partl, Scarpas & Al-adi (eds) © 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 978-0-415-55854-9. Formulation of authoritative temperature gradients for an analytical design process of flexible pavements using statistical techniques S. Kayser & F. Wellner Chair of Pavement Engineering, Dresden University of Technology, Germany ABSTRACT: Within an analytical design process of flexible pavements various input parameter are required. Beside the material properties the climatic conditions as well as the traffic load will play an important role within the design process. These properties have an important influence on the flexible pavement design. It can be concluded that the temperature dependant behavior of the flexible pavements should be taken into account in the design proc- ess as accurate as possible. The time dependant temperature stages within the asphalt layers that are based on the climatic conditions can be modeled by numerical simulations. For the mechanistic design procedure of asphalt pavements all relevant temperature gradients within the asphalt layer should be considered. Within the research presented in this paper, twelve standardized characteristic temperature profiles could be determined for Germany. However, the general procedure to determine relevant temperature functions is universally valid. 1 INTRODUCTION The analytical pavement design processes are based on MINERS law. That means, a material is fatigued if the sum of all individual damages, which result from all stress conditions, is greater than 1. The number of these conditions results from the number of the temperature stress conditions in combination with the predicted traffic load conditions. The number of possible combinations depends on the time slice and can theoretically be infinite. If a time slice of one hour is assumed, you must consider approximately 8,760 temperature stress conditions per year and more than 262,000 temperature stress conditions for a service life of 30 years. Here it becomes obvious that it is necessary to minimize the enormous number of temperature stress conditions and the time required for the analytical design process of flexible pavements, Currently, 13 temperature functions have been implemented in the German pavement design tool PADESTO (Kiehne, unpublished) to consider the influence of temperature within the analytical pavement design process, Each of these temperature functions describes a vertical ‘temperature profile along the thickness of the asphalt layers and represents a specific range of asphalt surface temperatures, These temperature regions range from smaller than -10°C to more than +45°C and have a range size of 5K. Each of these temperature classes is represented by its mean, The 13 temperature stress conditions result from these 13 temperature functions. ‘The stress conditions are weighted by applying the frequencies of occurrence. The 13 tempera- ‘ure ranges for the pavement design process in Germany were reviewed and modified. 2. OBJECTIVES It is generally agreed that complete temperature responses and temperature profiles, which depend on the time slice, should be used. Although the accuracy of the pavement design results improves with a decreasing time slice, the calculating effort increases disproportionately above all concerning the optimization of the pavement designs. If you choose a time slice of one hour, it is necessary to consider more than 262,000 temperature profiles for the pavement 2sstatus of loading rate of damage materials (ctanig fans ne) Cc ‘number ofthe status of Intingtvarv ends) va nN 3 mere than 42.00 ae of Tet oped of 8 er 1 ourly temperature profs inthe flldepth asphalt construction 1k — representatives temperatre profiles inthe Flldepth asphalt construction {k <=), Figure 1, Structure chart demonstrating the necessity to prepare authoritative vertical temperature functions for the flexible pavement design process. design on the basis of a service life of 30 years. It was the aim of this research to work out authoritative temperature functions for the German analytical pavement design tool PADESTO, The range of the temperature profiles that are represented by the authoritative temperature functions should be as wide as possible, while the number of the authoritative temperature functions should be as small as possible to optimize the calculation time. 3. APPROACH ‘The authoritative temperature functions for the analytical pavement design process were formulated in two major steps. First, the vertical hourly temperature profiles were numerically calculated on the basis of measured surface temperatures. The results were implemented in a database At the same time, extensive sensitivity calculations were performed within this process. These calculations helped assess the influence of the factors listed below on the vertical temperature profiles: — material parameters — thickness of the full depth asphalt pavements. In the second step, the simulated vertical temperature profiles were arranged according to their similarity with each other using the statistical tool ‘cluster analysis’. For each of these groups, characteristic features were found which form the basis for the selection. 4 NUMERICAL CALCULATION OF TEMPERATURE PROFILES The calculation of the vertical hourly temperature profiles, which were grouped later, was done using the differential method for one-dimensional unsteady thermal conduction, 216‘numerical simulation of the temperature profiles JIT “ala base with] hourly verial temperature profile [meer] [empertre | [temperate | [ees ] profile 1 profile2 profiles rt tributes which intence the form of the temperature profile > Intensity of surface temperature ening Sein tine i sey ' 7 sly with h 1 ‘cuperue pole =<} ' weet] [acer far)» [a ' Figure 2, Simplified schematic to explain the approach to formulating the authoritative temperature functions for the flexible pavement design process. Calculation of the time-variable temperature profile: ar_, er ar ax? ay where T'= temperature; t = time; a,.= diffusivity and x = thickness of the asphalt structure. Itis necessary to know various boundary conditions for the numerical calculations of the temperature profiles (along the thickness of the asphalt structure), — temperature profile at the beginning of the calculations — temperature response on the underside of the considered system (underside temperature) — temperature response on the upper surface of the considered system (surface temperature), The vertical temperature gradient at the beginning of the temperature simulation was determined by iteratively solving the calculation algorithm, The difference of two consecutive iteration steps should be smaller than 0.01 K for cach layer temperature of the chosen system. The temperature response on the underside of the considered system corresponded to the temperature response of the soil at a depth of 2.5m under the surface. Hence the thickness of the complete system is 2.50 cm. The temperature of underside layer is defined by a seasonal temperature cycle (Pohlmann 1989). Table 1 shows the monthly underground temperatures. The most essential of the three boundary conditions is the surface temperature, Extensive measured data of surface temperatures were available. The temperature data were measured by the Road Condition and Weather Information System (SWIS). A total of 74 measuring Table 1, Seasonal cycle of the soil temperature at a depth of 2.5 meters under the surface. Month Jan, Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun, Jul, Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dee. Temperature 58 49 42 45 62 86 12 128 130 119 98 78 “Underground temperature in a depth of 2,5 meters under the surface [°C], 217points in Germany were chosen whose measured data were used for the numerical calculation of the vertical temperature profiles. The period of data collection underlying the calculation was from 2002 to 2005. Altogether, a total of 450,000 hourly vertical temperature profiles were calculated, analyzed and evaluated In addition to the three boundary conditions for the numerical calculations of the vertical temperature profiles, other parameters also influence the calculation results, These are — thermal conductivity — density — specific thermal capacity. These three material-specific parameters can be summarized as the thermal diffusivity. Calculation of the thermal diffusivity Ay Po @Q) ar where 2, = thermal conductivity; p= density and c, = specific thermal capacity Because the thermal diffusivity is also a material-specific parameter, structural parameters of the pavement (material components, thickness of the asphalt) may also have effects on the temperature calculations. For example in (Kayser 2007b) and (Kayser 2008), extensive calculations are performed to assess the influence of different materials on the results of the temperature calculations. Both bound and unbound materials and their different material parameters are assessed. 4.1 Material properties The different thermal diffusivities are decisive in how the different materials influence the results of the thermal simulation. It is a general rule that the lower a layer is found under the surface, for which layer the thermodynamic parameters are changed, the smaller the influ- ence on the temperature profile of the upper layers in the system. The variation range of the thermal diffusivities of the several layers was chosen this wide in order to include the thermal diffusivities of the most different materials, As the maximum temperature differences concerning the reference value were between 1.0 K and +1.5 K, the influence of the differ- ent materials, which are normally used in road constructions, on the numerical temperature simulations can absolutely be neglected. 4.2. Asphalt layers Normal, full depth asphalt pavements consist of three different asphalt layers for which different asphalt materials are used depending on their different requirements. In (Pohlmann 1989) you can find that the relative differences between the thermal diffusivities of the top course, grade course, and subgrade course average about 10%, As noted in different literature (eg. (Krebs 1981) (Wistuba 2001) and (Wistuba 2004)), it is not necessary to differentiate between the three asphalt layers in temperature calculations. Hence the different thermal diffusivities can be neglected. Instead, it is practicable to use only one average thermal dif- fusivity for the full depth asphalt pavement. These statements conform the results obtained in (Kayser 2007b) and (Kayser 2008). 4.3. Thickness of the full-depth asphalt pavement Given the climatic factors and their influence on the temperature-dependent attributes of asphalt, the pavement design engineer currently assumes that the characteristic temperature profile of a surface temperature class can be described with one specifically defined temperature function. The temperature functions are independent of the thickness of the full-depth asphalt pavement and one can use this function for all possible thicknesses. Regardless of the fact 218whether this function is really representative, it should be examined if the temperature function is actually significant independent of the thickness of the full-depth asphalt pavement. The thickness of the full-depth asphalt pavement was varied between 15 and 35 cm with an incre- ment of 5 cm. In accordance with the specific variants, the frost blanket course was changed such that the total thickness of the frost-proof pavement superstructure was always 85 cm. With frequency of more than 90% for maximum absolute temperature differences of <0.5 K, it can be assumed that the thickness of the asphalt layer is not decisive for the definition of relevant characteristic temperature functions. 5 CLUSTER ANALYSIS METHOD Cluster analysis aims to allocate similar objects (here hourly vertical temperature profiles) into groups (clusters) on the basis of their similarity. The individual objects are combined in clusters such that the formed cluster is as homogenous as possible and that the clusters are as heterogeneous as possible when compared with each other. Cluster analysis uses different techniques. Depending on the classification principle, cluster analysis comprises incomplete, deterministic and probabilistic approaches (Bacher 1996), ‘Whereas the incomplete cluster analysis approach describes the classification objects spatially, the deterministic cluster analysis method assigns the objects to one or more clusters with a probability of 0 or I. In contrast, probabilistic clustering groups objects into clusters with a probability between 0 and 1 (Bacher 1996). Within these clustering approaches, which are summarized depending on their classification principle, there are further different sub-methods (see Table 2). 5.1 Partitioning method k-means ‘Using the cluster analysis method k-means, the clusters were determined iteratively through the definition of the number of clusters at the beginning of the calculations. First, each cluster was. assigned with a randomly chosen cluster center (here this was a random temperature profile). Subsequently, the remaining objects (temperature profiles) were assigned to the cluster that ‘was closest to them and a new arithmetic mean (k-means) was calculated (representation tem- perature profile) for each cluster. This procedure was iterated until the grouping of the objects Gid not change anymore and the mean square deviation in the clusters became minimum. ‘The mean square deviation or mean square error describes the variance of objects which cannot be explained by the cluster. It is defined like this (Bacher 1996): F(C)=,¥ Pre? > min 6) ret, where F = mean square error; C, = cluster i; T = temperature profiles of a cluster and D, = Euclidean distance between temperature profile T and the center of cluster C, ‘Table 2. Choice of cluster analysis methods according to the classification principle employed (Bacher 1996), Classification principles Incomplete Deterministic Probabilistic Cluster multiple correspondence next-neighbor-method latent profile analysis analysis Analysis non-metric multidimensional representatives-method __ analysis of latent classes scaling for nominal scaled variables Methods* nominal factor analysis of _hierarchical methods for __ analysis of latent classes McDonald the construction of for ordinal scaled cluster centers variables bivariate correspondence ——_k-means-method analysis of latent classes analysis for mixed variables "The partitioning of the temperature profiles was performed using the k-means method, 219The measure of distance used here is the Euclidean distance. It can be calculated using the following equation Pro = fUOE. Ta” o where x= variable of the object (in this case: depth position under the pavement surface); arithmetic mean of cluster C. With a partition algorithm, the cluster was determined using the k-means method. The necessary steps are described below. Initialization: random choice of the cluster. Attribution: Bach object was assigned to the cluster whose cluster center was the nearest to the object New calculation: The new cluster center (arithmetic mean of all objects of the cluster) was calculated for each cluster. Iteration: If the assignment was different, go to step Attribution (iteration until the mean. square error stops decreasing). 5.2. Definition of classification criteria The groups formed by the cluster analysis may have quite specific attributes. These cluster attributes were passed on by the objects of the cluster to the relevant class. Thus these object and cluster attributes constituted the classification criteria and finally allowed the definition of class limits. The form of the vertical temperature profiles also depends on the intensity of a time-variable surface temperature. According to this, time and amplitude of the daily surface temperature changes were used as classification criteria. 5.3. Scaling of temperature profiles In order to make the vertical temperature profiles comparable with each other, they must be scaled. Scaling allows the presentation and analysis of qualitative and quantitative temperature profile independent of absolute temperatures. Scaling makes the absolute temperature changes visible and comparable depending on the depth beneath the pavement surface. Using the scaling direction, the authoritative normalized characteristic temperature function could be derived for each class (defined amplitude and time range). The transfer to absolute temperature functions was made by addition of the surface temperatures or the temperature that was representative of a certain surface temperature class 5.4 Specifying the number of classes and class limits It is essential to specify the number and thus the limits of the classes for the classification criteria obtained for the determination of the authoritative characteristic temperature functions regarding the actual class width. The number and the limits of the classes and the resulting characteristic temperature functions were determined and specified in accordance with the procedure illustrated in Figure 3. The definition of the class limits of both classification criteria required to perform the cluster analysis twice, Since the amplitude criterion is a measure of the quantitative changes of a normalized temperature profile and the time criterion defines the qualitative temperature profile, it is recommended to define the limits of the amplitude classes during the first cluster analysis and then define the necessary time ranges (time classes) for each amplitude class. 5.5 Determination of necessary amplitude classes For the formulation of the necessary amplitude classes and their class limits, respectively, all calculated temperature profiles (~450,000) were arranged in accordance with the time (hour 220‘data ase with} — normalized hourly veal temperature profiles each temperature profile ie defined through time of ocurrence and temperature ampli) 7 CLUSTERANALISIS i Deserminaion of amplude cases mite | oFE: ne “A; — amplitude clases (A, << i) with class limits and i’ — normalized bourly -ORPE vertical temperature profiles Las ampladecer as ][—ampiadechneras Jue [ anmpledaneras |] 2 + + + Ah 3 ate base wilh A, — amplitude clases and jy — normalized hourly vereal temperature roles iin’) “amplitude cluster Ay amplitude cluster; ] __. [amplitude cluster Ay x ig temperatore profes | {tg temperatreprofies| 2. CLUSTERANALYSIS Determination of time classes 1h, —time classes per amplitude clases wit clas its and i - normalized hourly vertical temperature profiles Peo eee sossepp out 24 01 Suapuoooe oso ep 2) fo uorzjuniie3s data base with A; — amplitude classes, h,, — time classes and i,j — normalized hourly vertical temperature profiles (ins 4j # itn, j*) AL en MEN Cc mete Catas Nene S oT eT eT? (for class h1A1) (for class h2A1) Figure 3. Schematic view of the procedure to define the necessary amplitude and time classes including the representative temperature functions. Tn 221of the day) for which they were calculated. For each of these 24 hour groups (each group with the same number of vertical temperature profiles) the cluster analysis was performed four times to define the limits of the amplitude classes. In the first analysis, the number of clusters, which requires setting before the analysis starts, was defined to be two. For each of the following cluster analyses, this number was incteased by one cluster per analysis and was five at the end. Each cluster was checked for its amplitude significance after each of the four cluster analyses. Each temperature profile could be assigned a certain amplitude value independent of the cluster assigned. The cluster significance test was based on a frequency analysis of these amplitude data. This algorithm was applied to all 24 hour classes Subsequently, the absolute amplitude frequencies for each cluster were added for all hour classes, separately for all four cluster analyses. Figure 4 shows an example of the absolute amplitude frequency distribution. To avoid interpretation mistakes, which may result from the unequal distribution of the temperature amplitudes, the absolute frequency distributions of the clusters were also standardized. In other words, the absolute amplitude frequency per cluster was no longer accumulated over all hour ranges, instead one authoritative cluster was determined for each time and amplitude range. Afterwards, all time ranges of one amplitude range were added for each cluster. These were the time ranges for which this cluster is decisive. For the following cluster analysis, the overall amplitude range was divided into three amplitude classes to define the hour classes and their class limits. The relevant limits of the three amplitude classes were obtained from the amplitude ranges for which one cluster showed the maximum frequency compared with the two other clusters. Small amplitude: AA, < 65°C Medium amplitude: 6.5°C <= AA, < 115°C Large amplitude: AA, >= 11.5°C If the number of amplitude classes is reduced from 22 to 3 and if 24 hour ranges are con- sidered, the total of all classes (amplitude classes x hour classes) decreases from 528 to 72. Assuming that for each class the total surface temperature range is decisive, the number of absolute characteristic temperature functions is reduced from 6,864 to 936. This latter number can be reduced even further by decreasing the hour classes. 5.6 Determination of necessary time classes For each of these three amplitude classes, the relevant time classes (hour classes) must be defined. These classes were established in the same way like the amplitude classes. For this 35000 30000 = Custer = 25000 4 Cluster 2 zo000 -ecuster3 5 = 15000 £ E 10000 012345 6 7 8 9 101112131415 1617 18 19.20.22 Amplitude [°C] Figure 4. Cluster-related absolute frequency distribution depending on the amplitude and with three clusters predefined. (Kayser 2007a) 222=e Custert a Custer? = Custer Frequency [-] 01.23 45.67 8 8 1011121314 15 16 17 18 19 20 22 Amplitude [°C] Figure 5. Cluster-related standardized absolute frequency distribution depending on the amplitude ‘and with three clusters predefined. (Kayser 2007a), standardized temperature [°C] 20 -18 =10 6 o 5 10 10 18 20 28 depth under surface [em] 30 35 Figure 6. Normalized characteristic temperature profiles. (Kayser 2007a). purpose, all vertical temperature profiles, which were calculated from pavement surface temperatures using the difference method, were assigned to the three amplitude classes in accordance with the relevant amplitude. For each of these groups, several cluster analyses were performed again with different numbers of clusters given. For each cluster analysis, the clusters formed were checked for their significant time range (hour range) for which cach cluster is decisive. In constrast to the amplitude classes, scaling of the absolute frequencies ‘was not necessary since the 24 hour classes of one day were uniformly distributed within one amplitude class. Table 3 gives an overview of the time classes (hour classes) that were essential for the three amplitude classes. On the basis of the fact that the total range of the daily surface temperature became narrower if the daily amplitude was smaller, the number of necessary time (hour) classes must also decrease. The authoritative time (hour) ranges and also their class limits were again obtained from the frequency distributions depending on the hour of the day of each cluster formulated 223‘Table 3, ‘Number of the necessary time (hour) classes depend- ing on the three amplitude classes. (Kayser 2007) ‘Amplitude range ‘Number of necessary time (hour) classes Small amplitudes 2 Medium amplitudes 7 Large amplitudes 8 5.7 Supplementary combination of individual clusters Alll numerically simulated vertical temperature profiles were classified in accordance with the classification criteria to determine the actual representative temperature profiles of each of the 17 clusters. Afterwards, the average temperature profiles were calculated for each cluster. ‘The temperature profiles within each amplitude class were rather different. On the other hand, it was observed that some of the resulting temperature profiles from different amplitude classes were very similar. This was caused by the two-phase partitioning (first phase: determi- nation of the amplitude classes; second phase: determination of the time classes). 5.8 Standardized characteristic temperature profiles Finally, 12 standardized characteristic temperature profiles were formulated. Each of these temperature profiles has two defined classification criteria (amplitude and time classes) and can be approximated by a polynomial T (x)= ks: |x]? + ky: |x|? Ky: [x (3) where T/x) = temperature; k= coefficients and x= depth under the surface. 5.9 Absolute characteristic temperature profiles For the analytical design processes of flexible pavements it is necessary to consider absolute tem- perature profiles as an input parameter. Using equation (5) in conjunction with the coefficients from Table 5 it is possible to calculate the standardized characteristic temperature profiles. The latter were transferred into absolute characteristic temperature profiles due to the overlap with the surface temperatures. Equation (5) was extended by an absolute member that represents the surface temperature Table 4. Authoritative time (hour) ranges (Kayser 2007a). Normalized characteristic temperature profile KAO A107 A104, *104 k*10" ncTL 0 0.15 0.74 13.80 1046.64 nel? 0 0.20 1.08 16.73 1772.06 ncT3 0 0.58 3.88 10.90 3484.09 neT4 0 187 -19.36 71120 10,444.00 ncTS 0 0 -278 270.69 8695.52 nel 37.00 4.99 23.42 $52.20 2614.52 neT7 0 0.88 10.47 435.71 6431,31 ncT8 0 0.18 5.65 386.43 8379.71 ncT9 0 218 24.49 1033.69 18,776.82 ncT10 0 0 4.72 468.62 15,753.32 neTLL 63.00 831 41.56 864.89 2282.53 neT12 0 1.88 2071 778.89 9081.79 224‘Table S. Authoritative amplitude and time (hour) ranges for each normalized characteristic temperature profile (Kayser 2007a), ‘Normalized characteristic ‘temperature profile Amplitude range ‘Time range neTl AA, < 65°C 10amto7 pm ncT2 AA, A6S*C 20 pm to 9am 65°C AA, <1LS°C 10 pm to | amand 7am to 8am nol 65°C AA, < 115°C 2am to 6am AA, >= 115°C 2am to 7am nel 65°C <= AA, < 115°C 9am to lam BA, >= 115°C 8am9am nc 65°C <= AA, = 115°C 9pm to lam ncT9 AA, >= 115°C 10amto 1am acT10 AA, >= 115°C 12amto3 pm neTll AA, >= 115°C 4pm to6 pm ncT12 AA, >= 115°C Tpm to 8 pm. Ti) sky 0 thy xt tet hy xt Ty © where 7, = surface temperature. 6 SUMMARY Asa result of the research presented in this paper it was found that a direct relation between the temperature gradient and the temperature range does not exist. In fact, by the means of thermodynamic principles a more practicable criterion than the asphalt surface temperature was defined. Based on the time of day and the daily intensity of the asphalt surface temperature variation the arrangement of the temperature profil was determined. Using these values and the deterministic partitioning method k-means decisive temperature profiles were defined, The investigation was based on the statistical analysis of calculated temperature profiles due to measured pavement surface temperatures. Because the surface temperature is not relevant for the classification of the temperature profiles, the results of the partitioning process are standardized. The standardized temperature profiles can be calculated and represented by using polynomial fifth grade, By adding an absolute clement to this polynomial the standardized temperature profiles can be transferred into absolute temperature profiles. As a result, the number of the characteristic temperature profiles that are required for the design process could be reduced significantly. 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