OECD DIVINE ELEMENT 1: ACCELERATED DYNAMIC PAVEMENT TESTING

The loads that trucks impose on pavements and bridges have an important effect on the life of the infrastructure and, therefore, on total national road costs. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Road Transport Research Programme has found that dynamic pavement loading is increasing in OECD countries, resulting in an increased rate of road wear. Although the importance of the relationship between the magnitude of dynamic loading and road wear is being recognized, many questions remain regarding the nature and influence of dynamic loading, and the interaction between the vehicle and pavements and bridges. In an attempt to address some of these issues, the OECD Road Transport Research Programme launched a major 2-year study into the relationship between heavy vehicle dynamic loading and pavement and bridge wear, known as the Dynamic Interaction of the Vehicle and INfrastructure Experiment (DIVINE) project. The project consisted of the following six interrelated research projects: Element 1: Accelerated Pavement Dynamic Testing Element 2: Pavement Primary Response Testing Element 3: Road Simulator Testing Element 4: Computer Simulation of Heavy Vehicles Element 5: Spatial Repeatability of Dynamic Loads Element 6: Bridge Dynamic Loads Element 1 of the DIVINE project is an accelerated pavement testing project undertaken at the Canterbury (New Zealand) Accelerated Pavement Testing Indoor Facility (CAPTIF) to determine the effect of the quality of two different suspensions -airbag with shock absorber and multi-leaf steel spring suspensions, based on measurements of primary pavement response and the rates of damage progression in a flexible pavement subjected to accelerated loadings. This report describes Element 1 of the program, which consists of the design of the experiment, testing method, method of data collection, results of the data analysis, and major findings and recommendations\n