Investigating the Effect of Moving Truck Wheel Load on the Performance of Smart Road Lane Separator

Abstract

Abstract. Road design has been undergoing incremental upgradation over the past decades. Author developed a new innovative smart road lane separator that can be embedded into the road surface for road illumination and conveying useful information to the road users such as traffic density, sudden stoppage in traffic, road blockage or changes in road geometry. In this regards the presented research work details the numerical modeling and analysis of the proposed device under the action of impact loading generated due to moving truck wheel. This analysis simulates the real-world situation for the newly proposed device. The purpose of analysis was to evaluate the design performance of the proposed device. Three cases of varying support were taken into consideration to simulate real world application, these include fully supported, partially supported and edge supported to simulate the condition when the sub-base material of the road gets eroded owing to gradual wear and tear or due to rains and flooding. Furthermore, analysis was conducted for truck wheel moving along a straight line and in a zig-zag motion along the length of the lane separator. The results indicated that the loading case with minimum support, simulating flooding erosion is the most severe case resulting in cracking of the device. However, no damage was observed in the other cases. Furthermore, a slight uplift of the end of the device was noticed; which can be eradicated using traditional anchoring. From the presented analysis and results it can be concluded that the newly developed smart road lane separator device can be used for real world application in both flexible and rigid pavements.