Structural Responses of Flexible Pavement Subjected to Different Axle Group Loads

Abstract

This study presents the structural responses of flexible pavement which were subjected to different axle group loads. Three types of axle group loads, e.g. single axle-dual wheel, tandem axle-dual wheel, and tridem axle-dual wheel, were applied over the field for the instrumented trial section. The corresponding structural responses were measured using a series of embedded instrumentations e.g. pressure cells, asphalt strain gauges, strain gauges, thermocouples, moisture sensors etc. A 3-dimensional (3-D) finite-element analysis (FEA) model and the multi-layer linear-elastic analysis (LEA) were developed to estimate structural responses which were then compared with the field measurement data. Both FEA and LEA assumed the pavement layer materials to be homogeneous, isotropic, and linear-elastic. The elastic moduli of pavement layers were determined from the falling weight deflectometer (FWD) based on the backcalculation procedure. Results from the analysis indicated that both FEA and LEA were in good agreement with the field measurement results with some exceptions for strains under the asphalt concrete surface.