IMPLEMENTATION OF AN AUTOMATED RATING PROCEDURE FOR PAVEMENT SURFACE ROUGHNESS. FINAL REPORT

The study on the Implementation of a Rating Procedure for Pavement Surface Roughness was divided into three tasks. The first task involved the automation of the collection and processing of roughness data. The task involved using a microprocessor-based data acquisition system, called the Penn State Automatic Road Meter (PSARM), which was developed as a replacement for the Mays Ride Meter currently used by many state highway departments. A second task involved the correlation of the Mays meter and a simple survey profilometer. Both instruments were simultaneously mounted in the same vehicle, and a correlation of the two was run. The last task was a continuing refinement of the Pennsylvania Transportation Department's road rating system. A methodology was developed that uses road profiles and measures seat accelerations of a vehicle to find the transfer functions of that vehicle for the purposes of ride quality studies. The last part of the third phase involved some initial studies into the roughness traction loss on a circular track.