Pavement bearing capacity evaluation during pavement-fracturing using falling-weight impact acceleration

Inpavement infrastructure rehabilitation, a comprehensive evaluation of the pavement’s bearing capacity is essential. This paper explores a new attempt for real-time assessment of pavement fracturing effectiveness, combining theoretical and simulation analyses with practical application to four typical pavement structures. The study focuses on analyzing falling weight impact signals to assess pavement load-bearing capacity and fragmentation degree. The findings reveal that: (1) The discrete-continuous coupling method shows that stronger surface and support layers result in higher peak impact accelerations and shorter impact durations. (2) Field data from semi-rigid bases highlight a significant correlation between pre-fracturing resilient modulus and peak impact acceleration, while post-fracturing resilient modulus is closely related to impact duration. (3) In cement pavements, the pre-fracturing deflection corresponds with low-frequency peak values, whereas the post-fracturing deflection aligns with high-frequency peaks. This paper introduces a new approach for real-time pavement fragmentation evaluation, providing a basic reference for the future automation of fracturing techniques.