Citation

Von becker PJ. Proc. Int. Tech. Conf. Enhanced Safety Vehicles 1992; 1992: 109-115.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, In public domain, Publisher National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article describes work which was carried out to investigate the effect of commercial vehicle design on pavement damage. The research program was carried out in 5 stages and investigated the following: a) the effects of tyre type (single or twin), and the tyre contact pressure upon strain on and within flexible pavement; b) the effects of suspensions and dampening upon supplementary dynamic loads caused by vibration; c) the dynamic axle loads on cement concrete pavements which are caused by pavement irregularities such as joints and step formations; d) the influence of tandem and triple bogies on loading; and e) the effect of axle load, type of tyre and tyre contact pressure on rutting. The effects upon the road pavement of all these different variables were added to the static axle load by using equivalence factors. A formula was then worked out which could be used to calculate the impacts on the road caused by a vehicle unit, or by a whole fleet of vehicles. The proportional relations between measured instantaneous wheel loads and strains in or on the surfacing of the pavements indicated that it will normally be sufficient to carry out the measurements on the vehicle and to use these values in a computer simulation model to determine the impacts on the road. The effects of increased impacts on the road on the costs of new construction and preservation of pavements were determined. The results show higher costs of up to 5 percent for new construction projects and of about 20 percent for the preservation of the existing federal trunk road network.