Sensitivity Analysis of Heavy Pavement Design for a Container Terminal Area, Case Study: Port of Gaza, Palestine

Abstract

This study focuses on the sensitivity analysis of various design parameters for heavy-duty pavement for container terminal areas using Airport Pavement Structural Design System (APSDS) to yield an optimal design solution. APSDS is based on layered elastic theory, which was introduced into airfield design practice with the release of the computer program LEDFAA (Layered Elastic Design, Federal Aviation Administration). In this study, the pavement structure was found very sensitive to design parameters, where 15-60 mm more in base thickness was increased the design life twice. A reduction of base thickness was 27% by changing the handling system from rubber tyred gantry crane system to straddle carrier system and a reduction of 42-76% of base thickness by changing the interface condition at the bottom of base layer from smooth to rough. Other effects of design parameters such as lateral wandering distribution, container weight frequency, variation of elastic modulus for concrete block pavers and sub-grade are discussed. Also various construction materials were used and several combinations of base and sub-base materials were analysed to be able to select the most economical pavement structures.