Based on a Finite Element formulation of thick plate on elastic foundation, parametric studies are performed in this work to investigate some important details of the dynamic behavior of concrete pavements. Since the 2-parameter soil provides a rational and computationally efficient model of the sub-soil, it is used in this work as the sub-grade soil model and the differences from the response of Winkler foundation is investigated. The parametric studies further include the difference between static and dynamic response and also investigate the effects of structural damping, vehicular speed and soil stiffness on the response of concrete pavements to single wheel as well as HS20 loading. The wheels are moved over the edge and centerline of the pavement and the resulting deflections and principal tensile stresses are calculated from a dynamic time domain analysis.

Results from the numerical analyses indicate that the Winkler soil model may overestimate the structural responses and significantly overdesign the pavement as a result. The effects of soil stiffness and structural damping are found to be significant, as is the importance of dynamic analysis. However, the effect of vehicular speed is found to be relatively less significant in this study.