Development of Structure Analysis Program for Jointed Concrete Pavement Applying Load Discretization Algorithm

Recently, the new pavement design method considering Korean environment and the specification for improving performance of pavement are being developed in Korea. The Jointed Concrete Pavement Program Applying Load Discretization Algorithm (called HEART-JCP) is one of the results of Korea Pavement Research Project in Korea. HEART-JCP program is developed to analyze various loading condition using the load discretization algorithm without mesh refinement. In addition, it can be modified easily into multi-purpose concrete pavement nidyses program because of the modularized structure characteristic of HEART-JCP. The program consists of basic program part and load discretization part. In basic program part, the displacement and stress are computed in the concrete slab, sub-layer, and dowel bar, which are modeled with plate/shell element, spring element and beam element. In load discretization program part, load discretization algorithm that was used for the continuum solid element is modified to analyze the model with plate and shell element. The program can analyze the distributed load, concentrated load, thermal load and body load using load discretization algorithm. From the result of verification and sensitivity study, it was known that the loading position, the magnitude of load, and the thickness of slab were the major factors of concrete pavement behavior as expected. Since the result of the model developed is similar to the results of Westergaard solution and ILLISLAB, the program can be used to estimate the behavior of jointed concrete pavement reasonably.