Development of an automated routing and pavement damage prediction program for superheavy trucks
Abstract
The implementation of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) opened the borders to international traffic flows traveling from/to both Canada and Mexico. As a consequence, the US highway network would be subject to trucks with new axle configurations and heavier axle loads. A fund study, Model Calibrations with Local APT Data and Implementation for Focused Solutions to NAFTA Problems, aims at providing tools to predict the additional pavement damage and the economic impacts of allowing such super-heavy trucks utilizing the US highway system. As part of this fund study, this research focused on developing a GIS-based tool integrating a Finite Element program to automate the selection of routes and evaluation of pavement damage caused by super-heavy trucks. This tool, referred as Pavement Damage Prediction (PDP) program, was developed using previous work conducted by researchers at UTEP for the TXDOT. The procedure uses a network representation of state highway corridors for super-heavy trucks in the New York State. It incorporated the shortest path algorithm in the platform of ArcView GIS software and Network Analyst extension. The Finite Element program was integrated to calculate the pavement distress on each road segment when a super-heavy truck was hauled along the selected shortest path. Finally, truck damage would be expressed in relative terms compared to that of a standard truck.
Subject Area
Civil engineering
Recommended Citation
Yan, Qing, "Development of an automated routing and pavement damage prediction program for superheavy trucks" (2005). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI1430264.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI1430264