Using spatial statistics to characterise pavement properties

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the statistical models available to characterise spatial variability, and some applications of these models to pavements. It is intended as an introduction for pavement engineers, because these methods are not widely known in the pavements community, and as a guide for conducting simple spatial analysis. Spatial statistics offer a number of insights into the nature of variability in pavement materials and structure, such as the range over which one can expect to see correlation between measurements, and provide a statistically sound procedure for estimating properties between samples. These models have been used recently to gain insights into variability in pavement performance, which could lead to them being incorporated into mechanistic-empirical design methods, although more works still need to be done in this area.

Keywords::

• spatial variability
• pavement variability
• pavement design
• random fields
• reliability