Analysis of the effect of increased AXLE loads on pavement maintenance costs

Overloaded vehicles contribute significantly deterioration of road surfaces because the damage tohas been found to increase with the fourth or fifth power of axle loads. It appears that the pavements need protections from failure.Most countries provide such protection by enacting legislation limiting the permissible axle load and enforcing this legislation by a certain enforcement policy.While such legislation may reduce pavement maintenance costs due tc increasing the time at which major maintenance is required, it reduces the truck transport efficiency byimposing additional costs on the haul of freight and required resources for enforcement. The relative effect of changing the axle load limits and enforcement policy were estimated through this thesis .Present axle load distributions were determined from 2 setof surveys conducted in different locations under differentenforcement policies, while proposed axle load distributions under different proposed loading scenarios were estimated using National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP141) shifting methodology. Present pavement condition of the Egyptian paved network were determined from pavement condition