Suggested Citation:
Estaji, Mostafa, Erdem Coleri, John T. Harvey (2018) Energy Dissipation in Concrete Pavements Under Moving Loads Due to Structural Damping. Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

This paper presents the results of an investigation of energy dissipation induced by structural response of concrete pavement structures. Dynamic finite element models were developed to examine the response of concrete pavements and energy consumption due to subgrade damping for typical field sections in California. Viscous subgrade and concrete properties were characterized by in-situ falling weight deflectometer (FWD) testing and back-calculation. The impact of various factors (load, speed, temperature) were investigated from two different perspectives: deflection and fuel consumption. In order to achieve a more realistic response, truck tire tread patterns were implemented in the moving load models using inked tire footprint sketches. The contribution of joints to the excess fuel consumption was determined. The impact of load, speed and temperature on predicted excess fuel consumption, estimated from energy dissipation in the pavement, was determined to be higher than the impact on displacement response. The effect of load was determined to be the highest. It was also concluded that models with square tire footprint geometry underestimate the pavement response compared to the realistic tire footprint models leading to significant errors in predicted excess fuel consumption of vehicles.

Key words: Concrete pavements, damping (physics), deflection, dissipation, finite element method, fuel consumption, live loads, mathematical models, pavement joints, test sections