Evaluating the influence of daily truck traffic flow on load effects using Monte Carlo simulations

This study is aimed at finding correlation between load effects and average daily truck traffic. First objective of the paper is to develop a robust Monte Carlo simulation technique by using bivariate copula functions. Such routine enables the generation of all the traffic flows necessary to assess the influence the traffic flow on the extrapolated load effects. The results exhibit important variations of the load effects depending on the characteristics of the generated traffic. This can be potentially used to adapt the design traffic load model into a new assessment traffic load model more representative of the site specific traffic.