Coupled hydro-mechanical wave propagation in road structures

The purpose of this paper is to simulate the water flow induced by the moving wheel pressure on wet asphalt road pavements, which may be a reason for a damage phenomenon in asphalt denoted stripping. The wet asphalt pavement is modeled as water saturated porous media. The interaction of the porous solid skeleton and the pore liquid leads to a coupled dynamic problem with the deformation of the solid and the relative velocity and pressure of the fluid as primary unknown fields. A FE program has been developed to perform simulations. The simulations clearly demonstrate the induced deformation and water flow in the asphalt. A water pumping phenomenon is obtained where water is squeezed out of the asphalt underneath the wheel load and then later sucked back when the wheel has moved away. The water velocity is however low. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.