Surface Roughness Effect on Dynamic Response of Pavements

Abstract

By modeling a pavement structure as a beam rested on a viscoelastic foundation, we have constructed a physical picture linking together vehicle dynamics, road profile characteristics, and pavement response in a theoretical framework. Analytic expressions are derived for the vertical displacement, strain, and rate of strain of the pavement. The influence of surface roughness on these variables is investigated using actual road profiles. Furthermore, the rate of dynamic forces exerted on the pavement surface, serving as a deterioration indicator of pavement structures, is found to be linearly dependent on the energy-dissipation rate in the structure, for a reasonable range of the viscodamping constant of the structure. Because the dynamic strain can accelerate the appearance of fatigue cracks in pavement surface, its relation with lab testing the fatigue of a pavement specimen is also discussed. Although only a line dynamic loading is considered in the paper, the response of the structure under a loading with finite width can be derived by straightforward integration of the results presented in this study.