Effect of Vehicle-Pavement Interaction on Pavement Response

Abstract

The structural response of flexible pavements is studied under different dynamic loads and pavement roughness conditions. The factors affecting dynamic load variability are investigated with regard to pavement-vehicle interaction. Furthermore, the study considers the viscoelastic nature of asphalt concrete and the nonlinearity and plasticity of granular and subgrade materials. The Florida COMPAS computer program was used to estimate the dynamic wheel force, and the ABAQUS three-dimensional finite-element program was used to determine the pavement response. The effects of vehicle and pavement characteristics such as vehicle type, vehicle speed, suspension type, level of roughness, pavement stiffness, and layer thickness were studied and statistically analyzed. The walking-beam suspension causes more dynamic load variation than the air-bag and leaf-spring suspension. The dynamic load coefficient for the walking-beam suspension is approximately twice the other suspensions. Vehicle speed is an important factor; the 20 km/hr speed resulted in permanent displacement approximately 10 times the permanent displacement produced by the 130 km/hr speed. The pavement response varies with distance due to roughness. Pavement stiffness and thickness had some effect on pavement response, but truck type and truck suspension type did not have a large effect.