Pavement infrastructures footprint: The impact of pavement properties on vehicle fuel consumption

A novel mechanistic model based on an infinite beam on elastic foundation is developed to quantify the impact of pavement structural and material properties on pavement deflection and consequently on vehicle fuel consumption. The model can alsoaccount for the effect of temperature and vehicle speed on fuel consumption. A simplified expression for evaluating the energy dissipation for practical purposes is proposed and used to examine the impact of various pavement designs on fuel consumption throughout the United States roadway network. GPS (General Pavement Studies) sections from the FHWA's Long Term Pavement Performance program (FHWA 2011) are used for this study. These sections consist of asphalt concrete (AC), portland cement concrete (PCC) and composite pavements. In addition the model quantifies the impact of temperature and vehicle speed on fuel consumption in the network of roads. The results confirms that the impact of temperature and speed on fuel consumption is negligible for PCC pavements, while it cannot be disregarded for viscoelastic AC pavements.