PaveLab and Heavy Vehicle Simulator Implementation at the National Laboratory of Materials and Testing Models of the University of Costa Rica

The LanammeUCR is an academic entity attached to the Civil Engineering Faculty of the University of Costa Rica. The Transportation Infrastructure Program (PITRA) of LanammeUCR, works directly with the Costa Rican government performing applied research, auditing and technology transfer. It is funded from a law that assigns 1% of the fuel tax collected in Costa Rica to LanammeUCR with the main objective of ensuring the efficiency of road investments in the country. To meet this objective, PITRA has allocated a considerable component of its funds towards the acquisition of high technology/state-of-the-art equipment such as an falling weight deflectometer, road surface profiler, Geo3D, and dynamic testing equipment for material characteriza- tion, among others. With the goal of improving the design and construction of pavements structures, as well as better understanding the different materials used, LanammeUCR decided to acquire a Heavy Vehicle Simulator (HVS) with instrumentation. With this Accelerated Pavement Testing (APT) equipment, LanammeUCR will be fully equipped to monitor the performance of different pavement structures and materials, and new and improved pavement technologies, and to develop and calibrate a mechanistic-empirical design guide for local weather, materials, and traffic conditions. This paper summarizes the draft plan for the design of the APT facility that will be constructed at LanammeUCR. The facility includes a saturation system to simulate pavement conditionsduring Costa Rica’s intense rainy season.