4 ms·

Source? I honestly dont know, highways never seem that damaged between cities tbh.

• rtkwe 9y ago
  http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf page 36 "A 1962 American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Road Test Report shows that concentrating large amounts of weight on a single axle multiplies the impact of the weight exponentially. Test results show that an automobile axle weighing 2,000 pounds would have to pass over an interstate highway 7,550 times to have the same impact as 20,000 pounds concentrated on a single truck axle. As a result, the impact of heavy trucks on pavement is disproportionately greater than the weight carried." There's a lot of similar sources out there.
  • ProAm 9y ago
    Aren't most trucks multi-axle and have distributed weight?
    • ravar 9y ago
      To put some numbers to this, lets take the model that damage scales with weight per surface area to the fourth power. If you double the number of axles but maintain the same weight. Then there is half as much stress on twice as much area, 16x less damage per area, 2x area. 8x less total damage.
    • rtkwe 9y ago
      Yes, but at an average of 40000 lbs over the 5 axles they are still multiple times heavier per axle than a regular car.
      • ProAm 9y ago
        But they also buy multiple more of gas no?
        • rtkwe 9y ago
          Estimates put it at about 6.5 mpg not enough to make up for the exponential way that their weight increases the damage they cause.
  • ravar 9y ago
    http://www.weibull.com/hotwire/issue116/hottopics116.htm http://www.weibull.com/hotwire/issue116/hottopics116.htm Usually the damage done on a material varies by the stress to some power, not exponentially, as in the link. My understanding is the damage to asphalt scales with the 4th (ish) power of stress, which is in line with the provided numbers. 20,000/2,000=10 , 10^4 is roughly 7,550.