A new methodology to assess the remaining service life of motorway pavements at the network level from traffic speed deflectometer measurements

ABSTRACT

Road agencies are looking for efficient pavement management tools to maintain adequate service levels and preserve the asset value. The traffic speed deflectometer (TSD) allows to continuously assess the structural condition of the pavement while moving at traffic speeds, thus overcoming the typical drawbacks of traditional non-destructive testing equipment. However, managing the huge amount of data deriving from TSD surveys is challenging, and there is no established method to use those data for identifying the remaining service life (RSL) of the pavement network. This study aimed at developing a new practical and reliable methodology to assess the RSL of motorway pavements at the network level from TSD measurements. The methodology is based on the use of the surface curvature index SCI300 and includes the temperature adjustment, the definition of a representative SCI300 value for each pavement section and the estimation of the residual fatigue resistance (considering bottom-up cracking as the critical distress). The methodology was implemented using the deflection data deriving from a TSD survey carried out on about 400 km of motorway pavement. The obtained RSL predictions can be used to identify the structural ranking of different pavement sections and guide budget forecasting, according to the actual maintenance and rehabilitation priorities.

KEYWORDS:

• Asphalt pavement
• non-destructive testing
• traffic speed deflectometer
• remaining service life
• pavement management system
• maintenance and rehabilitation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Matteo Pettinari and Susanne Baltzer from the Danish Road Directorate for sharing relevant information about the use of data from the TSD1 (1st generation) in Denmark. The results and opinions presented are those of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The activities presented in this paper were sponsored by Autostrade per l'Italia S.p.A (Italy), which gave both financial and technical support within the framework of the Highway Pavement Evolutive Research (HiPER) project.