• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.4D
• /
• pp.485-492
• /
• 2008

This study presents a viscoelastic characterization of flexible pavement subjected to moving loads. A series of field tests have been conducted on three pavement sections (A2, A5, and A8) at the Korea Expressway Corporation (KEC) test road. The effect of vehicle speed on the responses of each test section was investigated at three speeds: 25 km/hr, 50 km/hr, and 80 km/hr. During the test, both longitudinal and lateral strains were measured at the bottom of asphalt layers and in-situ measurements were compared with the results of finite element (FE) analyses. A commercial FE package, ABAQUS was used to model each test section and a step loading approximation has been adopted to simulate the effect a moving vehicle. For viscoelastic analysis, relaxation moduli of asphalt mixtures were obtained from laboratory test. Field responses reveals the strain anisotropy (i.e., discrepancy between longitudinal and lateral strains) and the amplitude of strain normally decreases as the vehicle speed increases. In most cases, lateral strain was smaller than longitudinal strain, and strain reduction was more significant in lateral direction.