California

University of California Pavement Research Center

In operation since 1993, the University of California Pavement Research Center (UCPRC) was started as the Caltrans Accelerated Pavement Testing (CAL/APT) program in what was then the University of California Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies Bituminous Materials Laboratory in Richmond, California. The research group was also a major participant in the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP) from 1989 to 1992.

The expanded research areas include construction productivity, construction work zone traffic behavior, pavement management and construction contracting. In 2002, the UCPRC expanded to the Davis campus of the University of California, and the UCPRC now operates as a two-campus organization under joint leadership.

Since 1995, the UCPRC , with funding and direction from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and in cooperation with Dynatest Consulting, Inc., of Ojai, California and the CSIR of South Africa, has run a fully-functional accelerated pavement testing (APT) facility with two South Africa-produced Heavy Vehicle Simulators. The HVS machines are mobile and test pavements at the UCPRC facilities as well as on mainline highways.

The APT program is augmented by a full complement of laboratory testing and validation equipment and staff with expertise in asphalt concrete, Portland cement concrete and soils. The UCPRC also has field testing capabilities including Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD), Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP), nuclear gauge, and coring equipment. The UCPRC performs extensive field investigation work. All APT and laboratory results are stored in a relational database for future access and analysis, and are currently being used for calibration of mechanistic-empirical design procedures. Field sites for both flexible and rigid pavements are often instrumented and monitored to augment and extrapolate APT results throughout California.

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