4. General information on pavement design

While rational calculation methods were developed very early on in other fields, notably engineering structures, for many decades pavement design was determined empirically, based on observation of the behavior of existing pavements. It was with the AASHO (American Association of States Highway Officials) tests carried out in the United States from 1951 to 1961 that engineers first sought to provide a serious experimental basis for the choice of pavement thicknesses. However, specialists were quick to regard the conclusions of these tests as limited in scope, since, as already emphasized, experimentation can only be truly fruitful if it is underpinned by rational models that guide its organization and enable interpretation.

The search for mathematical models for the multilayer systems that make up pavements has been the subject of a great deal of work, marked by...