EVALUATION OF THE PERFORMANCE OF MINNESOTA ASPHALT PAVEMENTS

IN MINNESOTA THE METHOD OF EVALUATING PERFORMANCE OF PAVEMENTS IS STILL IN THE DEVELOPMENT STAGE. TO ESTABLISH THIS SYSTEM, 50 IN-SERVICE TEST SECTIONS WERE SET UP THROUGHOUT THE STATE AND THE PERFORMANCE OF THESE SECTIONS IS BEING OBSERVED PERIODICALLY SO THAT IT CAN BE RELATED TO THE DESIGN OF THE PAVEMENT SECTIONS. THE COMPONENTS USED TO ESTABLISH THE PERFORMANCE OF THE PAVEMENT SECTION ARE THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE PAVEMENT AND THE AMOUNT OF TRAFFIC ON THE SECTION SINCE CONSTRUCTION. THE PRESENT SERVICEABILITY CONCEPT FROM TEH AASHO ROAD TEST WAS ACCEPTED FOR OBTAINING THE PRESENT CONDITION IN TERMS OF RIDEABILITY. THE RIDEABILITY OF PAVEMENT SECTIONS WAS CORRELATED WITH THE MINNESOTA BPR TYPE ROUGHOMETER AND THE SAME EFFECTS OF RUT DEPTH AND CRACKING AND PATCHING WERE ASSUMED BECAUSE THESE EFFECTS ARE RELATIVELY INSIGNIFICANT. EQUATIONS ARE PRESENTED TO PREDICT THE RIDEABILITY OF THE MINNESOTA TEST SECTIONS. THE ROUGHOMETER WAS FOUND TO CORRELATE WELL WITH SERVICEABILITY RATINGS OBTAINED BY PROFILOMETERS AT THE PURDUE SERVICEABILITY STUDY. A DEVICE CALLED THE ROADMETER DEVELOPED BY THE PORTLAND CEMENT ASSOCIATION WAS USED BY THE MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS TO ESTIMATE THE PRESENT SERVICEABILITY OF THE PAVEMENTS. THE STRUCTURE AND USE OF THIS MEASURING DEVICE IS DESCRIBED. THE RESULTS USING THE ROADMETER WERE CORRELATED WITH PAVEMENT SERVICEABILITY RATING DETERMINED WITH A 6-MAN RATING PANEL ON SOME SECTIONS OF BITUMINOUS PAVEMENTS AND SOME SECTIONS OF CONCRETE PAVEMENTS. A STANDARD ERROR OF 0.205 INDICATES A GOOD CORRELATION AND IT IS FELT THAT THE ROADMETER CAN BE USED WITH CONFIDENCE TO ESTIMATE THE RIDEABILITY OF A PAVEMENT SECTION. THE PREDICTION OF THE EQUIVALENT LOADS ON THE 50 RESEARCH TEST SECTIONS WAS MADE USING AN EXTENSIVE WEIGHT AND VOLUME DISTRIBUTION STUDY AT EACH SECTION LOCATION IN 1964. A COMPUTER PROGRAM IS NOW BEING DEVELOPED WHICH WILL HELP ESTIMATE THE EQUIVALENT AXLE LOADS WHICH HAVE GONE OVER ANY PAVEMENT SECTION SINCE IT WAS LAST OVERLAID USING TYPICAL VOLUME AND WEIGHT DISTRIBUTIONS AND STATEWIDE DATA TO RATIO THE VALUES INTO THE PAST. A PROCEDURE WAS DEVELOPED WHICH UTILIZES THE BENKELMAN BEAM DEFLECTION TEST TO PREDICT THE PERFORMANCE OF A BITUMINOUS PAVEMENT IN TERMS OF THE NUMBER OF EQUIVALENT AXLE LOADS.

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00207097
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Jul 27 1970 12:00AM