Heavy vehicle suspension dynamic response and its relation to potential damage to roads

An assessment of the relation between pavement stored energy and road damage is presented. This assessment is based upon mathematical models of different heavy duty vehicles and pavement configurations. Vehicle-road interaction is simulated assuming that the pavement behaves as a viscoelastic material and the vehicles perform as linear multibody spring damped mass systems. Variation in a tyre's inflation pressure, suspension stiffness, load level, and road roughness are analyzed as a function of different vehicle configurations. Based on this simulation, a level of friendliness as a function of pavement accumulated strain energy, is associated to each vehicle configuration.