Prediction of the in-asphalt temperature for road construction operations

During the construction of new asphalt roads, compaction is the final step. Proper compaction is crucial for the road's lifetime. The temperature of the asphalt mixture directly impacts on the compactability and therefore the construction process strategy. Ideally compaction should be done within a certain in-asphalt temperature window, with lower and higher temperature boundaries, to achieve high quality road surface. But, as there are no available systems to predict in-asphalt temperature, roller operators have to guess the actual temperatures. This paper describes a method and proposes an implementation of this method to predict in-asphalt temperature at any given position. Calculations are based on an initial asphalt mix temperature during paving operations and the automated computing of a cooling function for a specific mix within certain ambient weather conditions. The implementation of the method was tested using position and temperature information collected by following a real paving project. Outcome of the method - the resulted visualization - aims to provide information about in-asphalt temperature to support decisions of machine operators when to start and stop rolling process to obtain the high quality road surface more reliable.