The effect of road unevenness on the dynamic vehicle response and ground-borne vibrations due to road traffic

In this paper, the relation between road unevenness, the dynamic vehicle response, and ground-borne vibrations is studied. In situ measurements of road unevenness and the dynamic vehicle response for six roads with different types of pavement are supplemented by numerical predictions of ground vibrations. The predictions are performed in two stages. In the first stage, the dynamic vehicle response is computed based on the measured road unevenness. The vehicle model is validated by comparing the predicted and measured vehicle response and subsequently used to predict the dynamic vehicle loads. In the second stage, the dynamic road-soil interaction problem is considered and the transfer functions between the road and the soil are computed. The effect of the pavement type (continuous, jointed, or composed of individual pavers) on the road-soil transfer functions is investigated and the free field vibrations are calculated using the dynamic vehicle loads computed in the first stage. The predicted free field vibrations are validated by measurements at one of the measurement sites before and after rehabilitation of a deteriorated concrete pavement. Finally, the results are used to investigate the relation between indicators of road unevenness such as the ISO 8608 road class, the International Roughness Index, and the coefficient of evenness on one hand, and the dynamic vehicle response and level of ground-borne vibration on the other hand. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.