Factors which affects pavement design

Factors which affects pavement design

Traffic  and  Loading

There are three different approaches for considering vehicular and traffic characteristics, which affects pavement design.

Fixed traffic: Thickness of pavement is governed by single load and number of load repetitions is not considered. The heaviest wheel load anticipated is used for design purpose. This is an old method and is rarely used today for pavement design.

Fixed vehicle: In the fixed vehicle procedure, the thickness is governed by the number of repetitions of a standard axle load. If the axle load is not a standard one, then it must be converted to an equivalent axle load by number of repetitions of given axle load and its equivalent axle load factor.

Variable traffic and vehicle: In this approach, both traffic and vehicle are considered individually, so there is no need to assign an equivalent factor for each axle load. The loads can be divided into a number of groups and the stresses, strains, and deflections under each load group can be determined separately; and used for design purposes. The traffic and loading factors to be considered include axle loads, load repetitions, and tyre contact area.