ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Back calculated elastic moduli from falling weight deflectometer tests are used for determining stresses and strains in pavement structures. Linear elastic models are preferred by pavement engineers for their inherent simplicity. Non-elastic response is then considered as noise by the evaluator. The present paper presents examples from research projects and includes instrumented pavement sections, and a variety of pavement types. Part of the non-elastic deformation can be regarded as a “conditioning of test” phenomenon and some as plastic response, volumetric change and water being present in the material. By carefully analyzing repeated load drops and full time histories, it seems that non-elastic deformation can be utilized to detect proneness to early rut depth growth and other parameters related to pavement deterioration. When using full time histories and repeated drop cycles it is evident there is more signal and less noise in the data than previously thought.
