A 3D Direct Vehicle-Pavement Coupling Dynamic Model and Its Application on Analysis of Asphalt Pavement Dynamic Response

Currently dynamic response of the pavement structure is widely studied in pavement engineering. A 3D direct vehicle-pavement coupling dynamic model was developed to describe the pavement dynamic responses in this paper. The moving vehicle was simplified as spring-dashpot components, and the pavement structure was simulated using three-dimension finite element model. Based on Newton iteration and central difference integration algorithm, the static and dynamic coupling reactions between the pavement structure and vehicle were considered using finite element platform ABAQUS. The numerical results fit analytic results very well in static analysis and fit experiment results in dynamic analysis well too. The simulated results indicate that the dynamic pavement surface deflection is much higher than the situation in static analysis, due to the overlapping effect. This phenomenon enhances when vehicle speed increases. A discontinuous zone of shear stress was observed on the base surface between the location under moving load and the location the moving load just passed. It was also found that the vertical fluctuation exists on the vehicle even if there is no roughness on the pavement surface. In general, the developed 3-D direct vehicle-pavement coupling dynamic model was validated to be effective on evaluating pavement dynamic responses.