Effects Of The Tire/Pavement Contact Pressure On Asphalt Pavement

Many recent researches have indicated that the contact pressure between tire and pavement is highly complex. It is different from the uniformly distributed vertical stress distributions traditionally used for pavement analysis. The contact pressure distribution is significantly affected by many factors, such as tire characteristics, inflation pressure, axle load, tire tread patterns and types of pavement. In this paper, two types of simplified load models have been put forward according to the tire tread patterns. On the basis of measured results of contact pressure on abundant literature and the computed results in this paper, simplified contact pressure models have been put forward. The finite element program MSC.NASTRAN was selected to analyze the response of pavement under the two modelled loads. The effects of axle load and material properties were studied, and the effects of truck load on permanent deformation and fatigue crack were also discussed. Finally, the multi-layer elastic system theory is employed to analyze the pavement response under the nonuniform load.