Stress Analysis of Asphalt Pavement under Non-uniform Load

The model of tire contact load on pavement has been simplified as circular and uniform for long time, which is different from real situations. In the paper, the stresses of asphalt pavement under three types of loads are obtained through elastic finite element method. The different stress distributed laws in the contacting area between tire and pavement under different load models will also be studied. The results show that saddle shape load (axle load) can produce larger shear stress in asphalt pavement than the other loads, and the instability rutting of asphalt pavement will be increased with axle load increasing. The non-uniform load influences on stresses of asphalt pavement more significantly than the uniform load. The non-uniformity is considered to be one key factor in the development of load model for pavement analyses.