Abstract Manager

In the Pavement Management System (PMS), pavement macrotexture plays a significant role in providing surface friction and skid resistance. Pavement macrotexture also has a great impact on water drainage and pavement noise. Pavement texture is generally defined as the deviations of the pavement surface from a true planar surface. Macrotexture is characterized by wavelengths between 0.5 to 50mm and peak to peak amplitudes usually between 0.1 to 20mm.

Traditionally, pavement macrotexture is measured by the volumetric method however, this method is limited both in terms of repeatability (due to manual measurement) and its ability to provide full lane coverage. With progressive improvements of photogrammetric technologies in recent years, such as the Laser Crack Measurement System (LCMS) used by MTO, pavement macrotexture can now be measured with high intensity and at posted highway speed. This study investigates the Mean Texture Depth (MTD) by using both the volumetric method and laser profile method. This study also validates the MTD collected by the laser profile methods and investigates the correlation between the laser MTD and the MTD measured by volumetric (sand patch test) method according to ASTM E965. This paper also explains the rationale of the methodology of both approaches, and the limitation of analysis.