Impact of Automated and Connected Trucks (Platoons) on Pavement Deterioration Mechanisms

📨 Principle Investigator: Hasan Ozer
🤝 Sponsor:  Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT)
đź“… Timeline: July 2020 – July 2023

Infrastructure Considerations in Response to the Automation in the Trucking Industry

Automation technology offers numerous advantages to the trucking industry in terms of fuel savings, operational efficiencies and preventing fatal crashes. 

Despite the numerous advantages of truck platooning enabled by connectivity and automated driving systems, there are concerns regarding its impact on pavement performance due to expected channelized traffic and reduced spacing between trucks within the platoon. 

Multi-dimensional dynamic triaxial system

Truck Spacing as a Key Variable of Platoons and Pavement Permanent Deformations

Truck spacing is one of the key parameters of a truck platoon that can be optimized to balance fuel savings and impact on the pavements. The rest period, defining the duration between the loading applications from two consecutive trucks, can impact permanent deformations and fatigue cracking in asphalt pavements. 

The main challenge with this new loading scenario is the uncertainty in the stress state configurations that may be generated during the platoon’s loading phase.

Dynamic and Multi-Dimensional Triaxial Testing to Simulate Platoon Stress Pulses

A custom-designed dynamic triaxial system was developed to simulate complex, repetitive stress-pulse configurations. The system can independently apply static and dynamic axial and confining pressures, with various pulse configurations, to simulate moving loads (compression–shear–extension stresses) in a single loading cycle.

Quantifying the Impact of Rest Period on Conventional Asphalt Mixes

Dense graded and stone-matrix asphalt mixes with various binder grades were used. The binders were selected to represent a range of climatic conditions. 

The increase in the rest period consistently increased permanent deformations by almost 2-3 times under different stress paths. The significance of the rest period as a testing variable, along with stress state and temperature, in repeated load permanent deformation experiments is evident.