Numerical simulation of pavement structures with inelastic material behaviour under rolling tyres based on an arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formulation

In this research, a numerically efficient computational procedure for the simulation of pavement structures under the load of rolling tyres is presented. In order to avoid a time-consuming transient finite element computation, an arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) formulation is introduced for the pavement structure. In the ALE frame, the pavement is described in a moved reference configuration, so that the loading of the pavement with a steady state rolling tyre can be described as a time-independent process. For the consideration of the inelastic material behaviour of asphalt in the ALE frame, two different procedures are presented and compared. The developed novel inelastic unsplit ALE procedure is found to be adequate, reliable and efficient. As an example, a pavement structure under the load of a rolling truck tyre is simulated. Stresses, strains and displacements of the pavement structure as well as the effect of different driving velocities of the tyre are evaluated.