QUALITY MANAGEMENT OF ASPHALT-CONCRETE LAYERS USING WAVE PROPAGATION TECHNIQUES

Highway agencies spend significant amounts of money and time in coring and in-situ testing of flexible pavements for quality management. The quality of the asphalt concrete pavement is assessed through field inspection, thickness and density measurement. Unfortunately, these parameters (except thickness) are not directly related to those used in design. To implement a mechanistic pavement design procedure successfully, or to develop realistic performance-based specifications, the modulus of laid-down asphalt concrete pavements is needed. As a results, more quantitative feedback about the pavement structure may be provided to the laboratory and design engineers. Seismic nondestructive testing methods can potentially offer an efficient, economical, reliable, and repeatable way of measuring modulus of asphalt concrete pavement layers. In addition, seismic methods for determining the modulus of asphalt concrete layers are discussed. A preliminary protocol for quality management of asphalt concrete pavements based on seismic methods is included. Issues yet to be resolved are discussed. A case study is also included to demonstrate the potential application of the methods in real-life projects.

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