PAVEMENT TYPE SELECTION FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES APPLYING LIFE CYCLE COST ANALYSIS

Road network acts as a vein for the socio-economicdevelopment of a country. To maintain sustainable development,countries all over the world are investing heavily in road network infrastructure development. Bangladesh, an essential partner of the Asian Highway, is alsoinvesting heavily in road network development. But due to poorplanning, inefficient implementing agencies, inadequate pavementdesign, low-quality construction practices, lack of pavementmaintenance, rampant overloading & tropical climaticconditions, the investment is not yielding the desired result. In Bangladesh, the current trend of pavement construction is 95% flexible pavement [16]. Due to tropical climatic conditions & regular flash floods during the rainy season, water stagnation damages the flexible pavements severely. The rigid pavement has a high potential of survivability against the damage due to water stagnation. In Bangladesh, the transportation agencies emphasize on least initial construction cost rather thanthe least Life Cycle Costas the only tool for pavement type selection. Due to low initial construction cost, the flexible pavement always gets priority over the rigid pavement. In this research, Life Cycle Cost Analysisof flexible and rigid pavement had been done for Sylhet-Bholagajroad comprising of both rigid & flexible portions. The pavement design data & different Schedule of Rates collected from the Roads and Highways Departmenthad been used for this analysis. 12% discount rate was used to convert all estimated future costs to Net Present Value. After performing a life cycle cost analysis, it can be concluded that rigid pavement is the optimal choice of pavementfor developing countries like Bangladesh.