Elastic multilayered pavement under an elliptical vertical load: analytical solutions and program verification

Abstract

Since the linear elastic solution for multilayered systems was developed in the 1940s, it has been widely used to evaluate the soundness of pavement structure. The primary assumption in the analysis is that the load applied to the pavement structure is simplified as a cylindrical load. Hence application of the cylindrical load to the evaluation of pavement structure, which is well known to involve asymmetrical loading, has been limited. Therefore, the analytical solutions and program verification for an elastic multilayered system subjected to an elliptical vertical load (asymmetrical vertical load) are presented in this paper. A coefficient recursion method was obtained to derive the coefficients A, B, C, D, E, and F based on the general solutions of the asymmetrical class. The results show that coefficients E and F of an arbitrary layer are equal to zero for pavement structure under an asymmetrical vertical load. Then the asymmetrical vertical load was modelled as an elliptical vertical load by simulating the tyre ground pressure distribution. The analytical solutions were derived by substituting the Hankel-transformed load function into general solutions of the asymmetrical system. A C++ program (ASLAYER) was developed on the basis of the analytical solutions and verified by comparing the results with those of BISAR with the definitions $p_0^h=0$ and $p_2^h=0$. The results show that ASLAYER can be used to make reliable estimations for the response of pavement structure under an elliptical vertical load. The results of mechanical responses for pavement structure under an elliptical vertical load, compared with those subjected to cylindrical load, show that the asymmetrical vertical load causes more damage to the pavement structure and should be given greater attention.

Keywords:

• layered system
• elasticity
• elliptical vertical load
• analytical solution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (5140080512).