Seasonal Analysis of Flexible Pavement Response to Falling Weight Deflectometer

Seasonal variation in pavement material properties can affect the in-situ measured pavement responses including deflections, stresses and strains. While previous field studies have mostly focused on the seasonal changes in Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD)’s deflection basin, the simultaneous variations of stresses and strains were not usually monitored. The present study assesses seasonal impact on horizontal and vertical strains at the bottom of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) as well as unbound layers’ stress at different depths. Several FWD tests were conducted from October, 2013 to December, 2014 in instrumented test road facility in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The obtained results showed that the pressure on top of base layer in the thaw season can exceed the one in the freeze season twice as much. Similarly, significant seasonal variations of horizontal and vertical strains at the bottom of the HMA were noticed. The present study concludes that using backcalculated layers’ moduli may result in overestimation of the vertical stress within unbound layers and HMA horizontal strain, while underestimating HMA vertical strain.

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  • English

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  • Accession Number: 01580160
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Oct 31 2015 12:39PM