Victoria Superheavy Load Move: Report on Route Assessment and Pavement Modeling (1335-1)

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has been issuing an increasing Number of permits for movement of superheavy loads. The effect of superheavy loads on pavements is not well established at the present time. To address this problem, TxDOT has funded a research project with the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) with the objective of developing a procedure to evaluate the potential for pavement damage on a proposed superheavy load route, as well as to determine whether temporary strengthening measures are needed.|During the study a number of superheavy loads will be monitored. This report describes the data collection and analysis results for a superheavy load move which took place in Victoria during December, 1992. The move involved the transport of two superheavy loads. A Multi-Depth Deflectometer measured pavement deflection under the superheavy loads. This study used the deflection data to evaluate the applicability of linear elastic layered theory to predict pavement response under the loading. Predicted displacement from the theory compared favorably with corresponding measurements.|To evaluate the effects of multiple wheel loads, an analysis was done to establish how predicted pavement response varies with distance from a given load and with different load configurations. The results indicate that stresses based on a single-axle model yield conservative estimates of the potential for pavement damage. This analysis showed that the road had adequate structural capacity to sustain the superheavy loads without developing visible distress.