Long-term Evenness of Pavements with Respect to Soil Deformations

Abstract

Today’s requirements of comfortable and fast travelling continue to increase. Thus it is necessary to secure a long-term evenness of the pavement. The evenness is depending on the homogeneity of the subsoil. Measurements indicate that the spatial variation of soil stiffness and pavement unevenness have the same statistical characteristics. It can be posted that the evenness of the pavement is a function of the spatial variation of soil stiffness, number of vehicle passes and dynamic loads. The dynamic loads depend on the dynamic characteristic of the vehicles, their velocity and the evenness of the pavement. A simple numerical model is outlined to demonstrate this mechanism of developing unevenness with number of vehicle passes. This gives a chance to establish necessary requirements for the tolerable spatial variation of soil stiffness with respect to the raising requirements of driving comfort.