Effect of vehicle-pavement interaction on dynamic response of rigid pavements

In the present paper, dynamic response of rigid pavements subjected to moving vehicular loads is presented using an analytical procedure based on the finite element method. The vehicle-pavement interaction effects are taken into account while developing the solution algorithm. The concrete pavement is discretized by finite and infinite beam elements. Infinite elements are helpful in appropriate modeling of end conditions. The main purpose of the development of infinite elements is to model the unbounded domain. The underlying soil medium is modeled by Pasternak model which assumes the existence of shear interaction between the spring elements. The moving vehicle is represented by a mass supported by a spring-dashpot system. The vehicle-pavement interaction force is modeled with Dirac-delta function. Dynamic equilibrium equation is solved with Newmark-Beta integration scheme. It has been observed that the dynamic interaction between the moving load and the pavement has significant effect on pavement response. Parametric study is carried out to investigate the effect of vehicle-pavement interaction (VPI) and soil parameters on the response of pavement.