ABSTRACT
This study investigates the ability of a generalized Vlasov model to describe the behavior of rigid pavements under short-duration dynamic loading. The rigid pavement was idealized as a thin elastic plate resting on a generalized Vlasov foundation, which accounts for the effects of inertia and damping of the soil stratum. The pavement response to Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) loading was simulated, and a semi-analytical forward-solution involving the use of a Hankel transform in space and a finite difference method in time was developed. To obtain the elastic moduli of the concrete pavement and the soil layers, an inverse-solution was developed based on the quasi-Newton approach. The developed analysis was used to interpret FWD data collected during several months at the Minnesota Road Research facility. The good match between the simulated and measured response data, and the reasonable backcalculated moduli showed that the generalized Vlasov model can be used effectively to characterize the rigid pavements.
