Field evaluation and analysis of road subgrade dynamic responses under heavy duty vehicle

Abstract

The study of dynamic responses of a layered road system under heavy duty vehicle is one of the most important areas in the field of transportation. This paper introduced a field testing programme of traffic-induced road vibration in Guangxi, China and investigated the subgrade vibration induced by a heavy duty truck with various axle weights and speeds through a series of field tests. The vertical stress and acceleration of the road subgrade at different depths from the tests were presented and analysed. According to the test road, a semi-analytical model of the layered road was established via the stiffness matrix method and the heavy duty vehicle was simulated by ten moving rectangular load pressures. Numerical results in the space domain were derived by performing Fast Fourier Transform and were used to compare its results with the field measurements. The agreement between the numerical and the field results was good, which indicates that the proposed method is useful in predicting the dynamic stress and acceleration of a multi-layered road structure.

Keywords:

• Field evaluation
• road vibration
• heavy vehicle
• stiffness matrix method
• analytical simulation
• Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS and the Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 41472286], [grant number 51279198], [grant number 41402276], [grant number 41472290].