Numerical simulation of pavement response to dynamic load

Abstract

Road structures are loaded by heavy vehicles and also they have an influence of temperature changes, which cause a difficult stress and strain distribution over layers of the pavement and the subgrade. Knowing this, distribution of stress and strain can help to better understand the behaviour of the pavement during the service time. For this purpose, the mechanical characteristics like elastic modulus, Poisson ratio, or damping ratio have to be known. The special device is used for determination of these mechanical characteristics, which loads the surface of the pavement by a force impulse. The deflections are measured in the surroundings of point of load impulse. The signal can be evaluated by use of 2D or 3D calculation model of pavement construction. In this case was used the axially-symmetric 2D model. This reduced the time consumption of individual tasks solution. The article considers also the influence of boundary conditions on deflections of models with varying width. The following text describes findings acquired from numerical simulation of pavement response to dynamic load.