The Effect of Asphalt Surface Layer Thickness on the Stress Distribution in the Flexible Pavements

Highways are one of the most preferred transport systems in the world and in Turkey. It is known that heavy vehicles using highways for freight transportation cause deformation of the road pavement, which are constructed at high costs. To prevent these damages, increasing the thickness of the pavement is one of the factors considered in design criteria. For this reason, using the finite element method to determine the pavement thicknesses and evaluating the data obtained before the road construction in the project design process can provide positive economic contributions. In this study, ANSYS, a finite element software, was used to determine the stresses occurring in the road layers as a result of heavy vehicle loads the flexible pavement according to the pavement thickness change. For 4 different pavement thicknesses, analyses were performed for flexible pavement with 30mm, 50mm, 70mm and 100mm pavement thickness for pavement stress analysis. According to the results of the study; it was observed that the stresses occurring in the loading condition decreased as the pavement thickness increased. It was concluded that flexible pavements with low pavement thickness can be deformed more quickly with the effect of heavy vehicles. Additionally, the study suggests that the most suitable pavement thickness for cost calculations can be determined using the finite element method, thereby allowing for more effective cost-benefit analyses.