Dynamic response analysis of vehicle and asphalt pavement coupled system with the excitation of road surface unevenness

This study aims to solve the dynamic responses of the vehicle and asphalt pavement coupled system while considering road surface unevenness and deformation. First, an advanced solving procedure is proposed by decoupling the vehicle-pavement coupled system into two subsystems (i.e., quarter vehicle model with two degrees of freedom, and viscoelastic multilayered asphalt pavement) and solving them independently until the surface deformation has converged through an iterative scheme. During the solving procedure, the finite difference method and integral transform techniques are respectively conducted to compute the dynamic responses of vehicle and pavement. Then, the solutions for the dynamic responses of the pavement are verified through finite element simulation, which highlights the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed solution. The convergence study for the iterative procedure of vehicle-pavement coupled system is conducted, and the coupling effect on pavement and vehicle displacements is investigated. Finally, the effects of the vehicle and pavement parameters (i.e., suspension stiffness and damping, tire stiffness and damping, road surface unevenness, and pavement temperature and vehicle speed related to the viscoelasticity of asphalt material) on the pavement dynamic responses and damages are discussed comprehensively. These numerical investigations could prove that the solutions for the dynamic responses of the vehicle-pavement coupled system has the potential to guide road-friendly vehicle design and pavement service life evaluation. (C) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study aims to solve the dynamic responses of the vehicle and asphalt pavement coupled system considering road surface unevenness and deformation. An advanced solving procedure is proposed by decoupling the system into two subsystems and solving them iteratively until the surface deformation converges. The dynamic responses of vehicle and pavement are computed using finite difference method and integral transform techniques, and the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed solution are verified through finite element simulation.