Application of boundary element method to identifying the boundary conditions of pavement - Subgrade system

In this paper, the pavement-subgrade system is modeled by a lot of rectangu lar thin plates on an elastic foundation, and the various joint restraints between these connected plates are simulated by generalized boundary condit ions with a number of undetermined parameters. A boundary element method is developed for the free vibration problem of plates resting on an elastic f oundation. The identification procedure is performed by combining the bound ary element method with optimization techniques. Two examples, respectively associated with plate structures and the pavement-subgrade system, are pre sented to illustrate both the boundary element method and the identificatio n procedure proposed in this paper.