Ohio
Accelerated Pavement Load Facility
The Ohio facility was constructed in 1997 as a joint venture between Ohio University and Ohio State University, through a grant from the Ohio Board of Regents. The facility has a rolling wheel load mechanism operating between two suspended steel girders spanning along the length of the test pit. It can be positioned at any selected transverse position for testing with optional random lateral wander.
Details about the Accelerated Pavement Load Facility can be found here.
The facility contains a test bed 13.7 m long × 11.6 m wide × 2.4 m deep. This is equivalent to two standard highway lanes with 1.2 m and 2.4 m shoulders. The pavements that can be constructed in the pit can be tested with dual or single wide-base tires at loads of 134 kN under controlled environmental conditions. The test pit and wheel load apparatus are enclosed in a room where the temperature can be maintained between –12°C and 54°C. Large doors allow for standard construction equipment to be used to build the test pavements in the pit.