Use of time–temperature superposition principle to create pavement performance master curves and relate pavement condition index and international roughness index

The international roughness index (IRI) is one of the most popular indices to measure pavement roughness. State agencies and cities with plenty of resources often collect IRI and pavement distresses every year or every other year, but some others with fewer resources will collect this information every 3 to 5 years. Collecting IRI is much more affordable than collecting pavement distresses. With this in mind, the objective of this paper was to establish a relationship between IRI and pavement condition index (PCI) using pavement deterioration models for both PCI and IRI based on the concept of time–deterioration superposition similar to the time–temperature superposition principle, and then combine both models to establish this relationship. Additionally, this study was used to establish threshold limits for IRI measurements that can be used as a general reference for pavement condition. Data from the Long-Term Pavement Performance InfoPave was used to perform the analysis for three network samples from Arizona, California, and Wisconsin. This analysis only included flexible pavements. The results from Arizona, California, and Wisconsin showed a good relationship between IRI and PCI using the proposed approach with a coefficient of determination ranging from 0.71 to 0.85. Furthermore, the analysis showed that the change in IRI over time can be related to the change in PCI over time. The general thresholds developed in this study apply to the sections evaluated but the approach can be used to set limits for other networks.