EVALUATION OF STRUCTURAL DEGRADATION IN CONCRETE PAVEMENT ON CIRCULAR ACCELERATED PAVEMENT TESTING FACILITY WITH FWD BACK-ANALYSIS

Abstract

 In this study, test sections of concrete pavement were constructed on the circular accelerated pavement testing (APT) facility and subjected to 5.2 million of 49kN equivalent standard wheel loads (ESWL). The test pavement has sections with and without steel mesh in concrete slab and asphalt interlayer under the slab to investigate the effect of these devices. During the loading, FWD tests were conducted periodically and the structural changes were evaluated with FWD back-analysis, which considers the degradation process simulated with 3DFEM models. The analysis revealed that interior parts of the slabs did not significantly degrade, while transverse cracks exhibited severe degradation. In spite of those severe degrading conditions, the stress at the slab bottom of joints did not significantly increased and the slabs have kept sound for more than 3 million of ESWLs.