DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR PAVEMENT REHABILITATION DECISION MAKING.

In recent years, continued deterioration of the nation's highway infrastructure has led to increased emphasis on pavement rehabilitation, with national annual expenditures of billions of dollars. The nature of the analysis and design process suggests that a new technological approach, knowledge-based or expert system, could play an important role in addressing pavement rehabilitation problems and needs. An overview of expert system characteristics is provided; the pavement rehabilitation analysis and design process is discussed; and a prototype, microcomputer-based, surface condition expert system (SCEPTRE 1. 1) for flexible pavement rehabilitation is described. Based on user inputs and a knowledge-base constructed from several human experts, the system can deduce a set of feasible project-level rehabilitation strategies for subsequent detailed analysis and design. The system can also readily explain its reasoning and conclusions, and is easily modified.