Accelerated pavement testing has been conducted in New Zealand since the late 1960s.
CAPTIF has been used by a number of roading agencies for a diverse range of projects. Among the projects undertaken to date, the OECD’s dynamic interaction of vehicle and infrastructure experiment (DIVINE) project perhaps provides the most outstanding compliment to CAPTIF’s unique abilities.
Accelerated loading facilities throughout OECD member countries were evaluated in terms of their potential to serve the research objective. CAPTIF was selected primarily because, alone among accelerated loading facilities, it was designed to generate realistic dynamic wheel loads. And because the facility has dual arms, so that the effects of two different suspensions can be compared simultaneously. The CAPTIF ‘vehicles’ which apply the loads are fitted with suspensions based on actual heavy vehicle components.