Dynamic stress and deformation of a layered road structure under vehicle traffic loads: Experimental measurements and numerical calculations

The study of stress and deformation of a road pavement–subgrade system under vehicle traffic loads is one of the most important areas in the field of transportation. In this paper, a physical model with all the road structure layers was built to study the dynamic behaviour of the layered pavement–subgrade system. Experiments were performed to determine the stresses, elastic deformations and irreversible permanent deformations at different depths to better understand the dynamic behaviour of a portion of a pavement–subgrade system. According to the physical model, the transmission and reflection matrices (TRM) method was used, and the general solutions for the stresses and displacements of the layered system subjected to dynamic double-circular loads at its surface were obtained. Numerical results in the space domain were derived by performing the inverse Hankel’s transform and were used to compare its results with the experimental measurements. The agreement between the numerical and the experimental results was good, which indicates that the TRM method is useful in predicting the stresses and elastic deformations of a multi-layered road structure. Moreover, the stresses and elastic deformations were analysed for different properties of the structure using numerical computation.

► We measure dynamic response of a layered road structure based on model experiment.
► The TRM method is developed to study the dynamic elastic response of road structure.
► We compare the numerical results with the experimental ones.
► Most part of dynamic stresses are imposed and dispersed by road pavement.
► Reasonable pavement’s thickness and modulus enable optimization of road design.