Análise comparativa entre o método de dimensionamento nacional de pavimentos - medina e método DNER

Abstract

Highways have one of the greatest relevance among the main infrastructure works in the country. Thus, due to the large volume of traffic, it is possible to understand the importance of paving quality and safety. In this scenario, an adequate design becomes increasingly necessary, capable of serving road users with quality throughout the useful life for which the pavement was designed. For this to be possible, it is necessary to have effective dimensioning methods that can evaluate the structure in all aspects. For years, the methodology adopted for dimensioning was empirical, in which past experiences were used to define the dimensioning of floors. However, the greatest deficiency of this dimensioning model is the performance of a better analysis in relation to the materials used and the stresses and deformations. Thus, it was necessary to study other mechanistic design methods that took into account a better evaluation of the pavement structure, due to its high complexity. Thus, the present work aims to establish a comparison between the current DNER method and the new National Pavement Dimensioning Method (Medina), which is based on a mechanistic-empirical methodology. As a result, the work proposed an analysis and dimensioning of the pavement of 5 projects carried out by empirical methodologies. With this, we sought to highlight the differences between the two methods and evaluate the results obtained through the Medina program and the current method in force. In this way, it was possible to prove that, in fact, there are divergences between the methodologies in which 3 of the 5 projects analyzed failed to reach the program stop criterion for the end of the useful life.