A Laboratory Investigation of the Effect of Multiple Axle and Truck Configurations on HMA Mixture Rutting

ABSTRACT Few studies have investigated pavement damage resulting from different axle and truck configurations, and they were generally limited to single and tandem axles. The unconfined compression cyclic load test with loading cycles that simulate different axle and truck configurations was used to examine their relative effect on permanent deformation of an asphalt mixture. The laboratory investigation indicates that the rutting damage due to different axle configurations is approximately proportional to the number of axles. However, the effect of rest period between axles groups within a truck configuration is significant. Calculating truck rutting damage by simply summing the vertical permanent deformation corresponding to its constituent axle groups results in erroneous predictions. The application of Miner's rule results in improved truck rutting damage predictions for a wider range of truck configurations, although it does not account for the effect of rest periods within a truck configuration. Fin...