PaveTesting Limited has been at the forefront ofdeveloping new technologies for over 10 years. Basedin the UK, we design and manufacture pavement testingequipment to meet the safety standard requirements ofregulators and the commercial requirements of pavedsurface operators worldwide.The Pave MLS range of Accelerated Pavement Testing machines (APTs) is used to verify the quality of newly constructed roads and to determine the remaining life of existing roads or design of new pavements.

Pave MLS equipment stimulates heavy traffic;  144,000 fifteen-ton truck axles per 24 hour day. The machines comprise a structural shell and guiderails carrying bogies with trafficking wheels linked by mechanical linkage.

Various parameters are recorded in real time to enable detailed analysis of the road’s performance. These include the test wheel load, test wheel speed, vertical wheel movement, number of applied axles, lateral wander position and elapsed time.



The wheel load is recorded and plotted in graphical form. The tyre pressure, temperature and the pressure of suspension are also monitored throughout the testing process to ensure safety, reliability and on sistency.



The Pave MLS range is used on highways, local roads, car parks and airport runways. Measurements are taken to determine a wide range of performance factors including:

• Structural performance of specific pavement compositions using third scale pavement structures

• Rutting performance of asphalt under high temperature trafficking

• Rutting performance of asphalt under wet trafficking

• The impact of speed on performance of asphalt

• Fatigue of asphalt and other pavement materials

• Performance of surface treatment layers

• Pavement reinforcement and highway furniture such as bridge expansion joints and pavement surfaces

• Environmental impact



Pave MLS 33

The Pave MLS 33 has a full load test section length of 3.3m. It contains four wheel bogies with 950mm diameter wheels and fits onto a standard low-bed trailer. Operating speed is 6000 wheel load applications per hour, equivalent to the operating speed of the Pave MLS 66.



Pave MLS 69

The Pave MLS 69 has a full load test section length of 6.9m. It contains six wheel bogies with 950mm diameter wheels and fits onto a standard low-bed trailer. Operating speed is6000 wheel load applications per hour.

The key feature of the Pave MLS range of machines is the very high number of axle loads that it applies in a given time. This allows more projects to be completed per year, leading to significant time and manpower cost savings for any given experiment.



With full scale units Pave MLS 33 and Pave MLS 69, the load on each set of dual wheels is 7.5tons (75kN) at speed. The bogies travel at up to a speed of 6m/s (nominally 22kph), therefore 6,000 axle loads are being applied per hour, equivalent to 1 million axle loads per week. When speed is reduced, the  load can be increased. To simulate realistic road trafficking, lateral movement of the tyres can also be applied.



A Full scale MLS is driven by contactless linear induction motors, LIMs, requiring no gearbox thus no wear or fatigue of the drive system.  The full-scale MLS also offers the following advantages:

• Designed to test the full depth of in-service pavements

• Narrow design

• Versatile and manoeuvrable

• Can be transported on a trailer