Elastic Pavement Analysis Using Infinite Elements

A numerical analysis of a multilayered rigid pavement system is presented. To efficiently model the behavior of the subgrade soil layers in the horizontal direction, infinite elements are used to represent the decaying feature of the field variables (displacements and stresses) in the far field. Ordinary finite elements are used in a relatively small region around the applied loads to accurately capture the stress field. Compared with a conventional finite-element analysis of pavements, wherein a finite size of the computational domain must be chosen and artificial boundary conditions must be assumed at the truncated boundary, the current approach can significantly reduce the total number of elements, saving considerable computation time and thereby making feasible more extensive analysis.