RESEARCH ON APPLICATION OF FINITE ELEMENT METHOD TO ANALYZE LOAD TRANSFER EFFICIENCY ACCORDING TO DEFLECTION OF AIRPORT RIGID PAVEMENT

Abstract

The load transfer between adjacent cement concrete slabs at expansion joint locations is affected by many different factors. The load-bearing capacity of the pavement will be limited and even lead to destruction if the load transmission ability of the dowel bars does not meet the requirements. Especially, for airports that have just been put into operation or have been in operation for a long time. In this article, the authors have researched and evaluated the effectiveness of load transfer according to deflection through the application of the 3D finite element method. The model utilizes material parameters and actual airport hard pavement structures and calculates for many types of aircraft commonly operating in Vietnam. Thereby calculating and evaluating the load transfer efficiency (LTE) according to deflection for each specific type of aircraft. The model also visually shows the deformation of the transmission dowel bars and concrete slabs at the expansion joint location. The authors tested the model's reliability through experiments conducted at Tan Son Nhat International Airport which is the largest-scale and oldest airport in Vietnam. The results of calculating LTE from the simulation and experimental models have a small error (3.39%) which shows that the model is highly reliable and can be used for similar research directions without being easily done through traditional methods.