APT FACILITIES IN SOUTH AMERICA

Click on the name of the APT facility to find information about that facility

BRAZIL   

The facility, located in UFRGS Campus, Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul State capital), comprises

a linear traffic simulator, test sections and a control centre. The traffic simulator was designed by

UFRGS researchers and built from 1992 to 1994 by DAER/RS personnel. The equipment, 15-m-long,

4.3-m-high and 2.5-m-wide, weighs around 220 kN. Bias ply tires, are mounted on a dual wheel on

the loading carriage. The system is arranged with computer control of travel speed and indexing

(where the precise path of the tires can be varied as much as ± 0.5 m from centreline for any given

number of passes).

Loads ranging from 41 kN (half of Brazilian standard axle load) to 65 kN are hydraulically applied.

Tire pressures vary from 0.56 MPa to 0.73 MPa, accordingly. Test wheels travel at 6 km/h over

7 m of pavement. Loads are applied in one direction and normally distributed about a wheel path.

By increasing the wheel load and applying this wheel load at the frequency of 260 per hour, the

device can simulate the traffic of 10⁵ ESALs in one week.

Topics of past and current projects include:

• Use of geotextiles as SAMI in order to delay crack reflection in overlays
• A study on flexible pavements performance based on APT and instrumentation
• Use of ribbed PVC pipes in pavement drainage
• Temperature measurements in asphalt pavements
• Strategies to delay crack reflection in asphalt pavements
  • Surface treatment with polymer modified emulsion as SAM
  • Asphalt concrete with asphalt rubber binder
• Effect of subgrade moisture content in the mechanical behavior of asphalt pavements

Links to Facility's:      Website         Publications page

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Last Updated:
March 1, 2005