Analysis Procedures for Evaluating Superheavy Load Movement on Flexible Pavements, Volume I: Final Report

The movement of superheavy loads (SHLs) has become more common over the years, since it is a vital necessity for many important industries, such as chemical, oil, electrical, and defense. SHL hauling units are much larger in size and weight compared to the standard trucks. SHL gross vehicle weights may be in excess of a few million pounds, so they often require specialized trailers and components with nonstandard spacing between tires and axles. Accommodating SHL movements requires the determination of whether the pavement is structurally adequate and involves the analysis of the likelihood of instantaneous or rapid load-induced shear failure. In this study, a comprehensive mechanistic-based methodology consisting of the following procedures was developed: segmentation of an SHL vehicle for analysis, subgrade bearing failure analysis, sloped-shoulder failure analysis, buried utility risk analysis, localized shear failure analysis, deflection-based service limit analysis, and cost allocation analysis. In addition, a comprehensive experimental program that included five fullscale pavement/soil testing experiments performed at a large-scale box facility was designed and carried out for the verification and calibration of a number of theoretically based procedures incorporated in the analysis approach. Supplementary numerical modeling as well as measured data from Accelerated Pavement Testing facilities provided additional verification of the procedures adopted in this study. The analysis procedures developed were then implemented into a user-friendly software package, SuperPACK (Superheavy Load Pavement Analysis PACKage), to evaluate SHL movements on flexible pavements. This report presents a summary of the analysis procedures developed for evaluating SHL movement on flexible pavements. Further details of these procedures are presented in a series of stand-alone appendices (volumes Ⅱ through Ⅹ).

• Record URL:
  https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/infrastructure/pavements/18049/18049.pdf
• Corporate Authors:

  University of Nevada

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  Center for Advanced Transportation Education and Research
  Reno, NV  United States 

  Federal Highway Administration

  Research, Development and Technology
  6300 Georgetown Pike
  McLean, VA  United States  22101
• Authors:
  • Hajj, Elie Y
  • 0000-0001-8568-6360
  • Siddharthan, Raj V
  • 0000-0002-3847-7934
  • Nabizadeh, Hadi
  • 0000-0001-8215-1299
  • Elfass, Sherif
  • 0000-0003-3401-6513
  • Nimeri, Mohamed
  • 0000-0002-3328-4367
  • Kazemi, Seyed Farzan
  • 0000-0003-2313-4995
  • Batioja-Alvarez, Dario
  • 0000-0002-1094-553X
  • Piratheepan, Murugaiyah
  • 0000-0002-3302-4856
• Publication Date: 2018-10

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 122p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Analysis; Cost allocation; Evaluation; Failure; Flexible pavements; Live loads; Nondestructive tests
• Subject Areas: Highways; Pavements; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01685804
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: FHWA-HRT-18-049, WRSC-UNR-201710-01
• Contract Numbers: DTFH61-13-C-00014
• Files: TRIS, ATRI, USDOT
• Created Date: Nov 20 2018 10:17AM