Performance-Based Design of Highway Infrastructure for Heavy Vehicles

拟议的研究计划开发了一个新的、全面的关于重型车辆交通和装载的知识库，以支持基于性能的公路基础设施设计。这项研究的动力来自于人行道和桥梁设计实践的进步，这越来越需要对重型车辆活动的详细描述。此外，鉴于交通基础设施赤字巨大且不断扩大，土木工程师迫切需要采用新的做法来改进基础设施设计和对其绩效的评估。虽然有各种数据来源可以用来描述重型车辆活动的特征，但在如何将这些不同的数据集整合到一个系统框架内，以便能够制定足够详细和可靠的这一活动指标方面，仍然存在着重大的知识缺口。这些指标是基于绩效的设计所需的输入。拟议的研究计划解决了这一知识鸿沟。 拟议研究的目标是：(1)开发一个通用的概念性框架，用于模拟重型车辆的交通和负载特征；(2)开发用于整合现有数据集的实用模型，以便于分析和创建有关重型车辆的交通和负载的新知识；以及(3)分析重型车辆的活动，以建立设计公路基础设施和评估其性能所需的指标。申请人建议通过使用交通系统分析方法作为模型开发、验证和应用的基础来实现这些目标。最终，这项研究的目的是通过澄清在设计公路基础设施时应考虑的问题，通过创建综合数据集为更好的决策提供信息，并增加未来处理这些问题的高素质人员库，从而提高加拿大公路基础设施的长期性能。

The proposed research program develops a new, comprehensive knowledge base about heavy vehicle traffic and loading to support performance-based design of highway infrastructure. The impetus for the research arises from advancements in the state-of-the-practice for the design of pavements and bridges, which increasingly requires detailed characterization of heavy vehicle activity. Moreover, given the large and growing transportation infrastructure deficit, there is an urgent need for civil engineers to adopt new practices to improve infrastructure design and the assessment of its performance. While there are a variety of data sources available to characterize heavy vehicle activity, there remains a significant knowledge gap concerning how these disparate datasets may be integrated within a systematic framework to enable development of sufficiently detailed and reliable indicators of this activity. These indicators are the inputs required for performance-based design. The proposed research program addresses this knowledge gap. The objectives of the proposed research are to: (1) develop a generic, conceptual framework for modelling heavy vehicle traffic and loading characteristics; (2) develop pragmatic models for integrating existing datasets to facilitate analysis and create new knowledge about heavy vehicle traffic and loading; and (3) analyze heavy vehicle activity to establish indicators needed for the design of highway infrastructure and the assessment of its performance. The applicant proposes to achieve these objectives by using the transportation systems analysis approach as the basis for model development, validation, and application. Ultimately, the research aims to improve the long-term performance of highway infrastructure in Canada by clarifying issues that should be considered in the design of highway infrastructure, informing better decision-making through the creation of integrated datasets, and adding to the pool of highly qualified personnel addressing these issues in the future.