Comparisons of Measured and Predicted Pavement Strain in Full-Scale Accelerated Pavement Testing

Using the measured three-dimensional (3D) tire contact stresses, the measured and predicted responses between a full-scale accelerated pavement test facility and that from a 3D finite element model were compared in this paper. The objective was prediction of asphalt mixture layer pavement response using the measured 3D tire contact stresses and comparison with the measured transverse strains in August and November. The transverse strains within asphalt layers were measured and the corresponding strains were predicted by 3D finite element analysis to achieve this objective. Additionally, the BISAR program, a layered elastic analysis, was used in corresponding field measurement prediction. There was reasonable matching of predicted transverse strains by 3D finite element analysis with the measured strains.