Vibration of simplified prestressed pavement model under moving two-axle harmonic loads

Abstract

The dynamic displacement response of a simplified prestressed concrete pavement model has been investigated comprehensively when the system is subjected to two-axle moving loads of harmonic amplitude variations. The axially loaded beam resting on a Winkler-type elastic foundation was employed as a simplified prestressed pavement model. The distributed loads with a constant advance velocity and damping of a linear hysteretic nature for the foundation were considered. Formulations were developed in the transformed field domains of time and moving space, and the steady-state responses to moving harmonic loads were obtained using a Fourier transform. Analyses were performed to investigate the effects of various parameters, such as the load distance, load phase, axial compression, damping, load velocity, and load frequency, on the displacement amplitude distribution and maximum displacement. The analysis results showed that the displacement responses were much affected by the load distance and load phase between two moving loads. However, the critical (resonance) values of the axial compression and load velocity were not affected by the load distance and phase. The first critical frequency was independent of those parameters, but the second critical frequency was dependent on them.