Abstract

BELTRAN-CALVO, Gloria Inés  and  ROMO-ORGANISTA, Miguel Pedro. Pavement Evaluation and Maintenance Decisions Based on Fuzzy Inference Systems. Ing. invest. y tecnol. [online]. 2014, vol.15, n.3, pp.391-402. ISSN 2594-0732.

The remaining service life and maintenance decisions of existing pavements are highly dependent on stiffness and deterioration conditions throughout their operation. A non-conventional fuzzy logic based methodology is proposed in this work to address the stiffness-deterioration condition and conservation decisions, by means of three Fuzzy Inference Systems. Analysis were conducted using a database gathered from field tests performed on three and four layer pavement systems, that included traditional layer structuring and pavements having a subbase stiffer than their granular base. Information about layer thicknesses, magnitude and severity of structural distresses, and parameters and indicators derived from deflection testing by impulse load devices were used. The developed systems, allowed representing expert knowledge and linguistic variables of subjective and qualitative nature, commonly used to describe the severity levels of deterioration; thus they can be involved into structural characterization of pavements. Results were also expressed linguistically, to facilitate their interpretation and understanding. Based on the high quality of results obtained, it seems reasonable to conclude that the proposed systems could be used confidently for assessing and making decisions about pavement conservation, with low computational cost.

Keywords : flexible pavements; deterioration; stiffness; fuzzy logic; inference systems.