Fatigue and Rutting Limits for a Flexible Pavement in Rohtak, Haryana
Main Article Content
Abstract
A road can meet the rutting requirement and still need better resistance to cracking. This study compares fatigue and subgrade rutting life for a flexible pavement in Rohtak, Haryana. Both checks use the same traffic and material conditions. The road has 135 mm of bituminous layers and 450 mm of granular layers. A soaked California Bearing Ratio of 8.5% gives a subgrade modulus of 69.24 MPa. Daily commercial traffic of 1,300 vehicles gives a design demand of 20 million standard axles, or MSA, over 15 years. The adopted tensile and compressive strains are 220 and 360 microstrain. The Indian Roads Congress equations at 90% reliability give fatigue and rutting lives of 16.70 and 57.80 MSA. Their capacity-to-demand ratios are 0.835 and 2.890. Fatigue controls the design. Reducing tensile strain to 210.02 microstrain, or by 4.54%, would bring the fatigue calculation to the required 20 MSA.
Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
References
Alnaqbi, A. J., Zeiada, W., Al-Khateeb, G., Abttan, A., & Abuzwidah, M. (2024). Predictive models for flexible pavement fatigue cracking based on machine learning. Transportation Engineering, 16, 100243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.treng.2024.100243
Bureau of Indian Standards. (1980). Methods of test for soils Part 7 Determination of water content dry density relation using light compaction (IS 2720 Part 7, 2nd rev.).
Bureau of Indian Standards. (1987). Methods of test for soils Part 16 Laboratory determination of CBR (IS 2720 Part 16, 2nd rev.).
Christopher, B. R., Schwartz, C., & Boudreau, R. (2006). Geotechnical aspects of pavements (FHWA NHI-05-037). Federal Highway Administration. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/engineering/geotech/pubs/05037/
Di Benedetto, H., de La Roche, C., Baaj, H., Pronk, A., & Lundström, R. (2004). Fatigue of bituminous mixtures. Materials and Structures, 37, 202–216. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02481620
Huang, Y. H. (2004). Pavement analysis and design (2nd ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall. https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/redirected-product/P200000003346/9780131842441
Imoh, U. U., Akinmade, D., & Movahedi Rad, M. (2026). Rutting resistance and fatigue performance of crumb rubber-modified asphalt concrete: Experimental investigation and mechanistic–empirical modeling. Infrastructures, 11(4), 133. https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures11040133
Indian Roads Congress. (2018). Guidelines for the design of flexible pavements (IRC:37-2018, 4th rev.). https://law.resource.org/pub/in/bis/irc/irc.gov.in.037.2019.pdf
Liu, Z., Zhang, L., Gao, Y., Dong, Y., Liu, Y., & Li, B. (2025). Mechanical response and fatigue life analysis of asphalt pavements under temperature-load coupling conditions. Applied Sciences, 15(13), 7441. https://doi.org/10.3390/app15137441
Lundström, R., Di Benedetto, H., & Isacsson, U. (2004). Influence of asphalt mixture stiffness on fatigue failure. Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, 16(6), 516–525. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0899-1561(2004)16:6(516)
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. (2026, February 4). Expansion and upgradation of National Highways. Press Information Bureau.
https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2223330&lang=1®=1
Narzary, B. K., & Narzary, J. (2025). Estimating resilient modulus of fine-grained subgrade soil from repeated load CBR test. Transportation Infrastructure Geotechnology, 12, 131.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40515-025-00587-8
Papagiannakis, A. T., & Masad, E. A. (2008). Pavement design and materials. Wiley.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470259924
Powell, W. D., Potter, J. F., Mayhew, H. C., & Nunn, M. E. (1984). The structural design of bituminous roads (TRRL Laboratory Report 1132). Transport and Road Research Laboratory.
https://www.trl.co.uk/uploads/trl/documents/LR1132.pdf
Praveen Kumar, P., Kiran Kumar, B. V., Manjunatha, S., & Subramanya, K. G. (2024). Finite element modeling by ABAQUS for rutting in flexible pavement. Civil Engineering and Architecture, 12(3), 1576–
1584. https://doi.org/10.13189/cea.2024.120323
Priest, A. L., & Timm, D. H. (2006). Methodology and calibration of fatigue transfer functions for mechanistic-empirical flexible pavement design (NCAT Report 06-03). National Center for Asphalt Technology. https://eng.auburn.edu/research/centers/ncat/files/technical-reports/rep06-03.pdf
Sambre, T., Endait, M., & Patil, S. (2024). Sustainable soil stabilization of expansive soil subgrades through lime-fly ash admixture. Discover Civil Engineering, 1, 65. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44290-024-00063-1
Shang, K., Wan, C., Guo, M., Zhou, C., Jiang, Y., & Ren, J. (2025). Temperature-dependent model of rutting behavior for connected layer mixtures in flexible base asphalt pavement. Materials, 18(4), 808. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18040808
Shanmugasundaram, V., Shanmugam, B., Kulanthaivel, P., & Thottipalayam Shakthivel, M. (2024). A reliability-based mechanical-empirical design method for flexible pavements containing cement-treated magnesite mine tailings as subgrade. Journal of Engineering and Applied Science, 71, 64.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s44147-024-00397-8
Tangella, S. C. S. R., Craus, J., Deacon, J. A., & Monismith, C. L. (1990). Summary report on fatigue response of asphalt mixtures (SHRP-A-312). Strategic Highway Research Program.
https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/shrp/SHRP-A-312.pdf
Wang, J., Yu, S., Wang, Y., Sun, L., Li, R., & Yue, J. (2024). Effect of moisture on the fatigue and self-
healing properties of SiO₂/SBS composite modified asphalt. Materials, 17(18), 4526.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17184526
Yang, J., Li, G., Chen, Y., Yan, Z., Wang, Y., Zhuang, S., & Jiang, Y. (2025). Temperature-dependent models for rutting performance of asphalt pavement surface layer materials under varying load conditions. Materials, 18(20), 4708. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma18204708
Yaro, N. S. A., Sutanto, M. H., Habib, N. Z., Usman, A., Bello, M. S., Mani, A. U., Murana, A. A., & Jagaba, A. H. (2024). Predictive modeling of fatigue and rutting parameters for asphalt cement modified with pretreated oil palm clinker using artificial neural network algorithms to enhance pavement performance. Discover Civil Engineering, 1, 64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44290-024-00068-w
Yoder, E. J., & Witczak, M. W. (1975). Principles of pavement design (2nd ed.). Wiley.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470172919
Zhang, J., Shang, H., & Fan, H. (2026). Characteristics of subgrade soil resilient modulus considering wide-range stress state. Journal of Central South University, 33, 3879–3892. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-026-6341-z