This paper describes the results of primary response measurements
carried out to study the effects of dynamic loadings of vehicles
on pavements. The measurements were made at the Virttaa test site
in Finland as part of the OECD/DIVINE project. Two instrumented
pavements and two artificial bumps were used to excite body bounce
and axle hop. Instrumented vehicles were from Canada, the United
Kingdom and Finland. The strains at the bottom of the bituminous
courses were in almost direct proportion to the dynamic wheel
loads on thick bituminous pavement. They were similar if there
were air or steel suspensions or if the dynamic load was caused
by body bounce or axle hop. On thin bituminous pavement the size
of the changing tire imprint plays an important role and dynamic
wheel loads have only a slight effect on the strains.