Improvement of Axle Load Spectra Characterization by a Mixture of Three Distributions
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 141, Issue 12
Abstract
Traffic is one of the most important variables used in pavement design methods. There are currently two methods for characterizing wheel load repetitions: equivalent single axle load (ESAL) and load spectra, which is a more precise characterization of traffic but relies on the same input data used to calculate ESALs. Although the load spectra are described using a bimodal mixture distribution, samples taken in Colombia indicate that the load spectra exhibit an intermediate region that can be modelled with an additional distribution. This research proposes the use of a mixture of three distributions: two log-normal distributions for the description of the peaks and a normal distribution for the intermediate region, finding a closed statistical solution for the formal evaluation of its properties, and deduces the expression of the th moment that facilitates obtaining important features of the proposed distribution. In a case of application in two geographic regions of Colombia, with more than 53,000 tandem and tridem observed axles, it was found that the proposed model effectively improves the characterization of the load spectra.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the Atlantic Department Government and the Colombian General Royalties System, for having partially financed this work through the Project LOGPORT, BPIN20120001001911050672 (Agreement No. 0103-2013-000016), in relation to the data analysis of the Caribbean Colombian region. The authors also wish to thank the National Roads Institute (INVIAS) of Colombia, for partially financing this research that was derived from the contract 1326 to 2011, signed between the Universidad del Norte and INVIAS.
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Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering
Volume 141 • Issue 12 • December 2015
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 29, 2014
Accepted: Jul 7, 2015
Published online: Aug 20, 2015
Published in print: Dec 1, 2015
Discussion open until: Jan 20, 2016
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