Latest development of the mobile load simulator (mls) in china and the technical features of the chinese national standards on the accelerated pavement testing using mls

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.