摘要：Past ed.tions of the American Association of State Highway and.Transportation Officials （AASHTO） Guid. for d.sign of Pavement Structures have served.well for several d.cad.s; nevertheless, many serious limitations exist for their continued.use as the nation＇s primary pavement d.sign proced.res. Researchers are now incorporating the latest ad.ances in pavement d.sign into the new Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement d.sign Guid. （MEPd.）, d.veloped.und.r the National Cooperative Highway Research Program （NCHRP） 1-37A project and.ad.pted.and.published.by AASHTO. The MEPd. proced.re offers several d.amatic improvements over the current pavement d.sign guid. and.presents a new parad.gm in the way pavement d.sign is performed. However, MEPd. is substantially more complex than the AASHTO d.sign Guid. by consid.ring the input parameters that influence pavement performance, includ.ng traffic, climate, pavement structure and.material properties, and.applying the principles of engineering mechanics to pred.ct critical pavement responses. It requires significantly more input from the d.signer. Some of the required.d.ta are either not tracked.previously or are stored.in locations not familiar to d.signers, and.many d.ta sets need.to be preprocessed.for use in the MEPd.. As a result, tremend.us research work has been cond.cted.and.still more challenges need.to be tackled.both in fed.ral and.state levels for the full implementation of MEPd.. This paper, for the first time, provid.s a comprehensive bird.s eye view for the MEPd. proced.re, includ.ng the evolvement of the d.sign method.logy, an overview of the d.sign philosophy and.its components, the research cond.cted.d.ring the d.velopment, improvement, and.implementation phases, and.the challenges remained.and.future d.velopments d.rections. It is anticipated.that the efforts in this paper aid.in enhancing the mechanistic-empirical based.pavement d.sign for future continuous improvement to keep up with changes in trucking, materials, c