Sources: American Concrete Pavement Association, Rosemont, Ill.; Porland Cement Association, Skokie, Ill.; CP staff
American Concrete Pavement Association, Portland Cement Association and the RMC Research & Education Foundation have teamed to create PavementDesigner.org, an online tool with features never before available to engineers and other stakeholders involved in vehicle-bearing concrete slabs.
“[This] represents a dramatic shift in solutions availability to designers of streets, roads, parking lots, and industrial facilities,” says Eric Ferrebee, EIT, director of Technical Services for ACPA, which served as project leader. “By bringing multiple programs together in one package and eliminating the cost and time to download software, updates, and patches, we have removed barriers and enabled designers to select the best option for pavement designs.”
PavementDesigner.org improves upon traditional design software programs, he adds, providing such value-added features as:
- No cost. Offered completely free of charge, eliminating the expense and burden of ordering software and updates, licenses.
- Immediate access. Brings the industry’s best pavement design programs together into a single website that allows professionals to design pavements immediately.
- Cloud storage/retrieval. Users have the option of creating an ID and password to save their design work as well as to retrieve projects using any digital device.
- Automatic updates and improvements. System perpetually adds new content or details, freeing users from software or patch downloads.
“This comprehensive but easy-to-use pavement design tool not only covers full-depth concrete, but also provides design solutions for concrete overlays and composite pavements,” explains PCA Director of Pavements Wayne Adaska, P.E. “Further, the tool includes other cement-based materials like roller-compacted concrete, cement-treated base and full-depth reclamation with cement.”
The program guides users through three basic stages: Project type (parking, street, or intermodal facility), followed by project level details and pavement structure design. Each module has help screens and conversions to assist pavement structure detail entry. After that data is entered and calculated, the user moves to a summary screen where slab design can be reviewed, analyzed, printed, and/or saved.
“PavementDesigner presents a unique experience which logically steps the [user] through the pavement design process,” notes NRMCA Executive Vice President of Local Paving Brian Killingsworth, P.E. “Experience and functionality of the website were foremost in our minds throughout the development. Couple that with state-of-the-art technical methods and reporting and the user will find the design process to be exceptional.”