The falling weight deflectometer (FWD) is used world wide as a well established and valuable non-destructive road testing device for pavement structural analyses. The FWD is used mostly for rehabilitation design investigations and for pavement management system (PMS) monitoring on a network basis. On project level investigations, both design charts and mechanistic approaches using multi-layered linear elastic theory and back-calculation procedures are often used to provide structural evaluations and rehabilitation options. As an alternative to this a semi-mechanistic semi-empirical analysis technique has been developed in South Africa whereby new deflection bowl parameters measured with the FWD used to give guidance on individual layer strengths and pinpoint rehabilitation needs. This approach is fully suited to supplementary analysis of FWD data in the Australian design systems, and overcomes some of the limitations of the curvature parameter. This paper briefly describes the current practice and basis of this use of deflection bowl parameters, and illustrates the use with a current pavement rehabilitation project underway in South Africa. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. 0612AR242E.
Samenvatting