Pavement Primary Response to Dynamic Loading

As part of the Dynamic Interaction Vehicle-INfrastructure Experiment (DIVINE) established in 1992, the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration agreed to conduct pavement primary response testing to establish how a pavement, and particularly a flexible, asphaltic pavement responds to dynamic loading. The rational being that if the stress and strains generated by dynamically varying loads at critical points in the pavement structure can be measured, then this will help to confirm the benefits of road friendly suspensions. This research known as Element 2 of the DIVINE project is presented in this report and includes the design, conduct, and findings of the Federal Highway Administration's research. The research performed at the Federal Highway Administration's test road in McLean, VA was conducted on an instrumented pavement trafficked by instrumented vehicles. Instantaneous strains generated by the vehicle could be directly related to the instantaneous applied loads and thus an analysis of the primary response due to dynamic loading was undertaken. Furthermore, an artificial plywood bump placed on the test pavement was used to excite different suspension modes. Analysis and results of data are included in this report.