Advanced Analysis of Rigid Pavements

Stresses in rigid pavements were obtained by using a foundation model, which is different from the dense liquid type foundation. The foundation was treated as an elastic continuum and the actual boundary conditions for the pavement slab were considered in the analysis. The analysis is based on a developed method, but different boundary conditions were considered for the pavement slab, and an improved computation technique was used. In this method, the slab was treated as an assemblage of plate elements, while the foundation was treated as an idealized elastic half space for which the flexibility matrix was determined using Boussinesq's equation for surface deflection. The stiffness matrix of the foundation was obtained by inverting the flexibility matrix. It was then combined with that of the slab to obtain the complete stiffness matrix of the structure. The stresses in the pavement slab were then determined for different loads and different types of subgrades. The results were compared with the stresses determined by conventional methods. The comparison showed that the conventional methods give lower stress that are on the unsafe side.