STATE OF THE ART OF MEASUREMENT AND ANALYSIS OF ROAD EVENNESS

This paper is a review of the state of the art of the measurement and analysis techniques used to evaluate road evenness. A summary of some European work is included in this review, however, the emphasis of this paper is on work done in the United States. Evenness is defined as the deviations of a pavement surface from a true planar surface with characteristic dimensions that affect vehicle dynamics, ride quality, dynamic pavement loads, and pavement drainage. Two general types of equipment measure road evenness: profilometers, which measure these characteristic dimensions directly. and response type equipment, which measure surface roughness as a dynamic response of the measuring equipment to that roughness. This paper discusses: (a) the characteristic of road evenness, operating characteristics, and output of each type of evenness measuring equipment and (b) the various methods of analysis and their application to highway safety, ride comfort, dynamic pavement loading, and pavement serviceability. These methods of analysis have been categorized into two general groups: those that provide a single number as index such as root mean square, slope variance, or present serviceability index and those that statistically provide more detail than a single index, such as harmonic analysis or power spectral density. Finally, a summary of the current World Road Association (PIARC) research project on "EVEN" is given. (A) For the covering abstract see IRRD E100847.

• Corporate Authors:

  INTERVIA

  ZVONKOVA 9
  PRAGUE 10,   Czech Republic  106 00
• Authors:
  • Wambold, J C
• Publication Date: 1998

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: References;
• Pagination: p. 3-15
• Serial:
  • ROADSURF '98. FIRST CZECH SYMPOSIUM ON ROAD AND AIRFIELD SURFACE CHARACTERISTICS. 2 JUNE 1998, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC. PROCEEDINGS
  • Publisher: INTERVIA

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Measurement; Measuring instruments; Profilometers; Smoothness
• Uncontrolled Terms: Longitudinal profile
• ITRD Terms: 6155: Apparatus (measuring); 3071: Evenness; 2825: Longitudinal profile; 6136: Measurement; 6103: Profilometer
• Subject Areas: Materials;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00765613
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport Research Laboratory
• Files: ITRD
• Created Date: Jul 1 1999 12:00AM