Analytical Approach to Predicting Temperature Fields in Multilayered Pavement Systems

An accurate and rapid estimation of the pavement temperature field is desired to better predict pavement responses and for pavement system design. In this paper, an innovative method to derive the theoretical solution of an axisymmetric temperature field in a multilayered pavement system is presented. The multilayered pavement system was modeled as a two-dimensional heat transfer problem. The temperature at any location (r,z) and any time t in an N-layer pavement system can be calculated by using the derived analytical solution. The Hankel integral transform with respect to the radial coordinate is utilized in the derivation of the solution. The interpolatory trigonometric polynomials based on discrete Fourier transform are used to fit the measured air temperatures and solar radiation intensities during a day, which are essential components in the boundary condition for the underlying heat transfer problem. A FORTRAN program was coded to implement this analytical solution. Measured field temperature results from a rigid pavement system demonstrate that the derived analytical solution generates reasonable temperature profiles in the concrete slab.