Heavy vehicle over bridges on the route to transport coal in Shaanxi, Northwest China

Abstract

Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 12 - 15 July 2004 "Getting recognition for the importance of transport", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa. This paper describes numerous overweight and overloaded vehicles on the Fu-Dian Highway, Shaanxi, China. On the base of investigation, 9 types of load models are sorted. Taking gross weight and axle–load as abscissa, and proportion of corresponding load range vehicles to total vehicles as ordinate, gross weight and axle-load histograms are drawn out. According to the above results, various assessment load models are carried out. The bearing capacity of reinforced bridges and load effect of overweight vehicles are calculated. The paper also raises suggestions for the road management authority. * This paper is part of the results from the China-South Africa S&T Co-operative project: 'Innovation and Promotion on Infrastructure Information Management Systems for Highway Authorities in South Africa and the Great Western Area of China'.