Elasto‐Dynamic Analysis of Pavement Deflections

Abstract

An elastodynamic analysis of pavement response to harmonic‐load nondestructive testing is presented. The method is based on a discrete layer approach that assumes linear variation of displacements in the direction of layering between adjacent interfaces of thin artificial pavement sublayers. The method is applied to typical four‐layer flexible pavement structures subjected to Road Rater excitations. The results show that dynamic displacements of pavements are materially different from those predicted by static analyses, even at low frequencies. If static analyses are used in backcalculating layer stiffnesses from such tests, erroneous results may be obtained. No simple relations between static and dynamic displacements exist. Rigorous elastodynamic solutions to these problems can narrow the gap between theoretical predictions of pavement response and field observations.