Initial Analysis of the New Hampshire Spring Load Restriction Procedure

In late 2006, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NH DOT) initiated a study to develop a Real Time Spring Load Restriction (SLR) Methodology to guide the Maintenance Districts in their management of spring load restrictions by identifying the beginning and duration of the spring thaw period. The study includes selection of test areas, purchase and installation of instrumentation, collection and analysis of data from the instruments and development and implementation of the methodology, Eaton, et al (2009), discuss details of the project. In this paper the authors discuss the initial procedure, the installed instrumentation, observations from the instruments, and refinements indicated by the observations and initial analysis of the data.