Quantification of Pavement Damage Caused by Dual and Wide-Base Tires (05-2189)**
Mostafa A. Elseifi, Louisiana State University
Imad L. Al-Qadi, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Pyeong Jun Yoo, Korea Institute of Construction Technology
Ibrahim Janajreh, Michelin Americas R&D Corporation

A study conducted in 2000 on the heavily instrumented Virginia Smart Road measured pavement responses to a new generation of single wide-base tire and to dual tires. The investigated new single wide-base tire has a wider tread and a greater load-carrying capacity than the conventional wide-base tire. The potential fatigue damage resulting from different tire configurations was also evaluated. After successful field-testing, a finite element (FE) parametric study was conducted to investigate different failure mechanisms that were not evaluated in the field. In this study, dual tires and two new generations of wide-base tires were investigated. The main differences between the first and second generation of wide-base tire is that the second is wider than the first; hence, it further reduces the contact stress at the pavement surface under the same nominal tire pressure. In the developed FE models, geometry and dimensions were selected to accurately simulate the axle configurations typically used in North America; actual tire tread sizes and applicable contact pressure for each tread were considered; laboratory-measured pavement material properties were incorporated; and models were calibrated and properly validated against stress and strain measurements obtained from the experimental program. Four failure mechanisms were considered: fatigue cracking, primary rutting, secondary rutting, and top-down cracking. Results indicated that the first new generation of single wide-base tire would cause relatively greater pavement damage than conventional dual tires. On the other hand, the second size new generation of wide-base tire would induce similar pavement damage as the conventional dual tires.