SEDL / STP / STP1555-EB / STP104106

Surface Deflections of Perpetual Pavement Sections

Gedafa, Daba S.
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND

Hossain, Mustaque
Professor, Kansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS

Miller, Richard
Assistant Geotechnical Engineer, Kansas Dept. of Transportation, Materials & Research Center, Topeka, KS

Steele, Douglas A.
Applied Research Associates, Inc., Champaign, IL

Pages: 13    Published: Nov 2012

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Abstract

Structural evaluation provides valuable information at the network level of pavement management for project evaluation and prioritization purposes. However, due to the expenses involved in data collection and analysis, structural capacity is usually not evaluated at the network level. A rolling-wheel deflectometer (RWD), which measures surface deflections at highway speed, can be an alternate, faster method of pavement deflection evaluation for network-level data collection. This study was initiated in order to assess the feasibility of using an RWD for network-level pavement deflection measurements. RWD deflection data were collected under an 80 kN axle load and at a highway speed of about 88 km/h on four perpetual pavement sections in Kansas. Falling-weight deflectometer (FWD) data were also collected concurrently. The FWD first-sensor deflections were normalized to a load of 40 kN and then corrected to a temperature of 20° C. The RWD deflections were also corrected for temperature. FWD and RWD center deflections were then compared statistically. The results show that the deflections measured by RWD and the center (first sensor) deflections from the FWD are statistically similar. Furthermore, there is a linear relationship between FWD and RWD center deflections for all sections.