Effects of heavy vehicle dynamic loading on rigid pavements

The interaction between heavy vehicles and rigid pavements has been analyzed in this research, with a focus on the application to pavement management. The main objective of this research was to develop a method to combine dynamic truck tire forces with pavement response models in order to study the behavior of rigid pavements under moving dynamic loading and to better understand the parameters that control the pavement fatigue life.; A method has been developed to combine truck wheel load histories with pavement response influence functions. Computer models of trucks were used to generate the tire forces of various trucks. Influence functions were obtained from a rigid pavement finite element program (ILLI-SLAB) for different pavement designs. Truck wheel load histories were combined with pavement response histories to predict pavement damage.; Experiments were conducted on instrumented rigid pavement sections using an instrumented truck to verify the computer simulation methodology. After experimental validation to ensure that the models could accurately predict pavement response to dynamic truck loadings, each combination of pavement and truck configuration was simulated to assess pavement damage. Strains in the wheel-paths were computed under typical road roughness conditions. The incremental damage at each point in the pavement was calculated, based on recognized strain-cycle life predictions for Portland Cement Concrete materials, and the cumulative damage along the pavement was summarized by statistical measures. The damage due to different truck configurations was calculated in terms of pavement life consumed over time, and the trucks were ranked according to relative damage of pavements.; The study has concluded that typical finite element models of rigid pavements, such as ILLI-SLAB, are capable of predicting responses to static loads when pavement properties are known. Coupling these models with programs that allow computation of strain time histories at a point in the pavement provides a new powerful tool for investigating truck/pavement interaction. Ranking of trucks in the order they damage pavements depends on axle load, axle spacing, tire types, and number of axle groups. In fatigue damage of concrete pavements, axle load is the major contributing factor than all other characteristics.