Abstract:
At present, China has the most full-scale and 1/3-scale Mobile Load Simulators (MLS) in
the world. There are over 100 million loading applications tested by MLSs from the east to
the west, and the north to the south of China. They have been applied in the transportation
laboratories of universities, research institutes and vocational colleges. A great number of
research reports and papers were published internally and internationally.
The MLS is an innovative advanced technology product with the original patent (90/9054)
registered in South Africa. In December 2016, the South African Bureau of Standards
(SABS) officially published the National Standard for the Determination of permanent
deformation and moisture sensitivity in asphalt mixes with the MLS11, also known as
MMLS3 (SANS 3001-PD1: 2016). Compared with other simulators used in the world, the
MLS has several advantages with the lower capital costs per load application; less
dependency on overloading for acceleration; lower operation cost indoors and outdoors;
greater flexibility for testing protocols; etc.
There are two categories of technical standards in China: one is the provincial level and
the other one is the national level. This paper introduces the latest development and
applications of the MLS technology in China. It mainly reports the technical features of
Chinese national standards on MLS systematic applications and the schedule to work on
this standard.
