Research Highlight: Impact and Feasibility Study of Solutions for Doubling Heavy Vehicles

Dr. Nasim Uddin (University of Alabama-Birmingham) is working with Dr. Ton-Lo Wang (Florida International University) and Dr. Necati Catbas (University of Central Florida) to investigate the impact and feasibility of solutions for doubling heavy vehicles.

Image courtesy of Nasim Uddin

This study aims to identify solutions to the rising demand for freight shipping by looking at: 

• Bridge behavior when the number of trucks traveling on the road is increased;
• Bridge behavior when trucks with higher capacities ared used;
• A combination of the two solutions; 
• Innovative bridge design Ie.g., FIB as a design solution).

Better understanding the trends in weight permitsin excess of legal limits and the resulting damage costs with appropriate design solutions and actions is extremely important. These factors impact:

• The utilization of bridges;
• Possible increase in load demands within safety limits;
• Our understanding of damage locations for condition-based maintenance of bridges;
• The establishment of long-term programmatic decisions regarding truck size and weight, a move that is in the best interest of our transportation infrastructure.

Image courtesy of Nasim Uddin

Some bridge response measures such as the Dynamic Amplification Factor (DAF) will be obtained. These measures have important effects on the design of highway bridges and also help us better predict the durability of current bridges.

For more information on this project, click here.