STATISTICAL EVALUATION OF SAMPLING METHODS AND BITUMINOUS CONCRETE COMPACTION

The paper reports on studies conducted by the Ontario (Canada) Ministry of Transportation and Communications to improve sampling of bituminous hot-mix for roads and to better understand the variables that determine the density of compacted pavements. To determine if it was possible to sample the material at the hot plant an experiment was designed to compare two method of sampling the material from the pile in the truck box with the standard sampling method already in use -- that of taking a sample from the road behind the paver. The compaction study employed a nuclear density meter in an experiment designed to measure density rapidly and to evaluate each source of variation.