Flexible pavement damage during spring thaw: A field study using the falling weight deflectometer

Authors:
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Spring thaw creates critical performance conditions for pavement networks. The increase of water content in the pavement environment is significant during spring thaw. Combined with poor drainage conditions, material condition variations are triggering factors that accentuate the effect of heavy vehicle loading on pavement response and damage. Two experimental pavement sections were monitored in 2014 and 2015 for temperature and deflections. The section with the lowest structural capacity was found to be more sensitive to thaw weakening. Fatigue damage calculated for this section was found to be 31% higher than the section with the highest structural capacity. Moreover, it was shown that a load reduction in the range of 20% can decrease the total yearly damage by about 7 to 10% for the considered test sections. In general, fatigue damage was found to increase from spring onset to the warmest conditions of the yearly cycle, in July.

This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit: