Dynamic Response of Highways and Airport Pavements to Falling Weight Deflectometer Loading

Abstract

An elasto-dynamic analysis of pavement response to Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) impact is presented. The analysis is based on the Fourier series synthesis of a solution for periodic loading of elastic or visco-elastic horizontally layered strata. The method is applied to selected flexible and rigid pavement sections. Pavement deflection predictions at several geophone locations for various pavements are presented. Comparison between dynamic and static deflection predictions reveal the importance of inertial effects in the prediction of pavement response. Conventional static analysis can yield significantly different results and, therefore may lead to erroneous (unconservative) predictions of pavement moduli back-calculated from deflection data. Deflection basins together with deflection contours for several pavements are also presented in order to give an insight into the progressive deformation of pavements during and after FWD impact

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