Why Pavement Cracks Are Mostly Longitudinal, Sometimes Transversal, and Rarely of Other Directions: A Geometric Explanation

Authors

Edgar Daniel Rodriguez Velasquez, Universidad de Piura in Peru (UDEP)Follow
Olga Kosheleva, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

3-1-2024

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-24-06

Abstract

In time, pavements deteriorate, and need maintenance. One of the most typical pavement faults are cracks. Empirically, the most frequent cracks are longitudinal, i.e., following the direction of the road; less frequent are transversal cracks, which are orthogonal to the direction of the road. Sometimes, there are cracks in different directions, but such cracks are much rarer. In this paper, we show that simple geometric analysis and fundamental physical ideas can explain these observed relative frequencies.