Citation

Sood V, Kanchan P, Tiwari D. Indian Highw. 2000; 28(8): 5-16.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Indian Roads Congress)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Recent increases in road freight transport in India make it necessary to fix new norms of vehicle damage factor (VDF) for designing and planning strengthening measures for existing roads. This paper analyses the results of axle load data collected at 47 sites on different Indian National Highways at different times, and suggests VDF values to be adopted for calculating 'standard axles', i.e. the number of axles for an 8.2t axle load. During the last decade, the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) has collected extensive valuable data on the axle load spectrum, especially in its Pavement Performance Study (R-19). The paper draws on data from nine of its specific projects, tabulates details of National Highways and numbers of axle load survey points and observations, and has a map showing the National Highways and data acquisition points covered by the study. The VDF analyses also show variations of VDF at specific sites for different times. Tables are given of the location-related VDF for different National Highways, the estimation of VDF for National Highways passing through different terrains, the VDF frequency distribution, estimates of VDF values for National Highways using different estimation methods, and the effects of VDF on pavement life.