Pavement Service Life of Beijing-Shanghai Expressway (Hebei Section) under Heavy Load Traffic

With the rapid development of economy, heavy load traffic has become the major transportation challenge for the expressway, in addition, it is the key factor influencing the service life of pavement. Based on characteristic investigation and analysis of heavy load traffic on Beijing-Shanghai Expressway (Hebei province section), accumulative equivalent axles which the pavement structure actually bear under the heavy load traffic action at different conditions are discussed. The service life of the asphalt pavement under heavy load traffic is estimated and evaluated in several aspects such as the road surface deflection, tensile stress of semi-rigid base and subbase, the road ultimate load. At last, the rationality of available measures to control the overload and overrun is analyzed and evaluated. The result shows that as overload and overrun traffic on expressway become more serious, and the error of axle load conversion in original road structural design under heavy load traffic, accumulative equivalent axles which the road surface actually bear increase greatly, therefore the internal structure stress of the road increases substantially, then early damage of asphalt pavements occurs and the service life of asphalt pavement is cut, which causes a great economic loss. For these reasons, some suggestions and measures to control vehicles of overload are provided.