Statement
Page 20
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Wheelbase Limits Every road, however, has pipes and culverts under it and a selection of bridges. Some bridges are long but many may be quite short and even not be obvious to the road user. These culverts and bridges must also be protected from damage and from the fatigue that is caused when they are "bent" by heavy loads. The loads a bridge is built for are expected to be spread out reasonably along the bridge deck so any concentration of load on a short distance of bridge deck is liable to cause rapid deterioration of the bridge or at least shorten its life_ Because of the large number of bridges in New Zealand and their costliness,bridge protection is very important.
To protect bridges we have a series of weight limits that apply to any series of consecutive axles of a vehicle or a combination of vehicles. No grouping of axles anywhere on the combination should exceed these "'wheelbase limits".
Question Consider a vehicle of the following type:—
single, spaced twin, close twin, simple trailer intermediate twin, close twin.
Sketch it and indicate the group of axles likely to be dangerous to bridges.