EXPERIMENTAL STUDY AND NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RUTTING PROBLEM OF AN ASPHALT PAVEMENT

Premature rutting distress of a freeway in south China was systemically surveyed. The influence of rutting on the smoothness and roughness of pavement is analysed in this paper. A RLWT (Rotary Loaded Wheel Tester) was first used to analyse the pavement rutting performance. The anti-rutting performance of each course of asphalt concrete from different sections of rutting depth was appraised with the RLWT. The total anti-rutting performance of the pavement and the trends of rutting were analysed from the rutting test results of each course. A pavement numerical simulative mechanical structure model was constructed with the finite element method. In this paper the stress state of asphalt pavement under tyre load was analysed. The overload influence on the stress state of asphalt pavement was analysed using several loads, and the influence of temperature on the stress state of asphalt pavement was also investigated. The influence of the depth and distribution character of the stress state of the asphalt pavement are summarised. The experimental results and numerical analyses show that the anti-rutting performance of each asphalt pavement course has an obvious influence on the performance of the whole asphalt pavement structure. According to the experimental results and numerical analysis, a rehabilitation rutting pavement scheme was devised. The rehabilitation scheme proved to be successful after three years of testing. The research results show that RLWT can be effectively used to appraise the anti-rutting performance of asphalt pavement and construction quality control.