pavement design for forklifts and cranes 3

[abih]

I have happy clients using 30 inches thick concrete pavement for daily forklift operations for years. Put the cost aside for a moment, what are the governing factors in a sound pavement design for these loaders? Do we simply reduce the case into EASLs?

Army has their LedRoad computer program, but I have difficulty locating it. Anyone here knows where to get a copy? thanks.

 

[Ron]

abih....industrial pavements can be designed using a variety of techniques, including ESAL approaches. Usually abrasion and other wear factors must be considered as well. I used a combination of methods in almost all of my pavement design, most commonly an ESAL approach then validation by elastic layer analysis.

I have attached a paper on Industrial Pavement Design that you might find useful....

 

[motorbiketocrank]

Corps of Engineers has free pavement design software that can perform analyses based on both empirical and LED methods (google "PCASE"). It has built in vehicles (including some cargo container forklifts & mobile cranes) and you can also create your own vehicles (i.e. you input loads, tire geometry/pressure, etc). Once installed if you click on the help button on the top toolbar (not the pulldown menu help) it has various documents including some example walkthroughs on how to use the program.

 

[racookpe1978]

Remember almost all commercial forklifts (interior, smooth concrete type applications) use solid rubber tires: almost no compression of the tire unto the pavement/concrete. So the full load of the forklift + load + margin will get pushed into the 4x small wheel areas.

It's the big outdoor (gravel) forklifts that have the large load-bearing tires.

Inside, most cranes will put their load onto the small pads on the outriggers. Again, more of a point-type load than something spread out and moving - like the Corps might model for a parking lot/road.