ABSTRACT
As part of the increased use of heavy vehicles, the agricultural industry in Denmark has for several years expressed a desire for a general facilitation of the rules regarding weights and mass per axle. With less restrictive rules, heavy farm vehicles can drive themselves to the fields on the road system, instead of having to be transported on oversize-trailers, which is the alternative today. There has in Denmark been many years of discussion on how to calculate the effects from the farm vehicles, that do not have standard road tyre configurations but are fitted with rubber tracks and wide low-pressure tyres. It was decided that maybe a simple practical test could bring knowledge and assumptions a step forward. Therefore, the Danish Road Directorate, in broad cooperation with KL (the National Association of Danish Municipalities), the agricultural industry, the asphalt industry, and the Danish Road Safety and Transport Agency, has carried out a series of practical tests by driving certain heavy farm vehicles on the road system. The purpose of these tests was to explore the deterioration of the roads as well as the impact from “legal” alternatives (Heavy goods vehicles, HGV’s) on a typical rural road, where such vehicles would typically drive. The tests were conducted in the days of 1-5 of May 2018, and they included three sub-tests respectively focusing on:
Fatigue test – any deterioration of the road surface and edges with attention to crack propagation and rutting
Measurements of the pressure in the depth of the road
Measurements of axle loads and contact pressures
The paper will present the test set-up, the measurements obtained and the final conclusions.
